apparently I'm a bigoted hypocrite (UNCLASSIFIED)

Victor Steinbok aardvark66 at GMAIL.COM
Fri Sep 28 14:18:58 UTC 2012


For the past 30 years, I've heard the exact same anecdote with the exact
same punchline, but with Harvard in place of Vanderbuilt (and a suitable
location substitution for the target of the directions question). There
is every indication, that the joke has been around at least another 30
years before that. I would be surprised to find that Stanford and
Chicago don't have their own suitably modified versions.

     VS-)

On 9/28/2012 10:04 AM, Mullins, Bill AMRDEC wrote:
> I grew up in Nashville, home of Vanderbilt Univ. In the circles I ran
> in, Vandy was thought of as snooty, and was perceived as presenting
> itself as a Southern Ivy League school full of students from old-money
> families. (all stereotypes, and I didn't have anywhere near enough
> personal knowledge of the school to say that they were based in
> reality or not). Thus, the following anecdote (which isn't true, but
> was repeated as if it were): I was at Vandy's campus, looking for the
> Sarratt Center (student union building) where a movie was being shown
> that I wanted to see. I didn't know the campus, so I asked a student
> walking by, "Excuse me, can you tell me where the Sarratt Center is
> at?" "Sir, you are at Vanderbilt University, and at Vanderbilt, we
> don't end a sentence with a preposition." (Previous sentence
> pronounced with full Grey Poupon/Thurston Howell III snootiness.) "Oh.
> Well then, can you tell me where the Sarratt Center is at, asshole?"
> When we were juniors in high school, this was really funny.

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org



More information about the Ads-l mailing list