antedating banjo (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Jonathan Lighter]

It is, when you think about it.

JL

On Thu, Apr 26, 2012 at 4:38 PM, Cohen, Gerald Leonard <gcohen at mst.edu>wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Cohen, Gerald Leonard" <gcohen at MST.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: antedating banjo (UNCLASSIFIED)
>
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>
> ________________________________
>
>  Wilson Gray, Wed 4/25/2012 11:40 PM, wrote:
>
> <snip> When I started high school, two problems struck me: 1) <snip>; 2)
> how to keep a straight face while being bombarded with laugh-inducing
> noises that I now know were nothing more than ordinary, European-American,
> ethnic surnames.
> <snip>
> --
> -Wilson
>
> That reminds me of a joke, ca. 1961, at a time of  turmoil in the former
> Belgian
> Congo when the news reports were filled with mentions of Lumumba, Mobutu,
> and Kasavubu.
> The joke went:
> "Lumumba, Mobutu, and Kasavubu were sitting around having a conversation.
>  Mobutu turned
> to Kasavubu and said: 'Isn't Kennedy a funny name?'"
>
> Gerald Cohen
>
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