"Joker"

[Jonathan Lighter]

I saw it too. Interestingly (possibly in a later interview) he also used
the word "jihad" in its mainstream Muslim sense of "inner spiritual
struggle."  How long before the usual suspects bend the moment to their
familiar designs?

Used to be, the Huns were universally thought to have originated in
Mongolia or even Korea. Last I heard, though, they seemed to be an
accretion of Turkic and Mongol ethnicities.

Either way, you don't mess with them.

They mess with you.

JL


On Wed, Apr 24, 2013 at 6:48 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: "Joker"
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Wed, Apr 24, 2013 Larry wrote:
>
> > Attila has always been a popular name for Turks
>
>
> I've noticed that and long wondered about it. Is Attila considered to have
> been a (kind of) Turk? And is it true that the name is, in fact, a Gothic
> nickname, sourced from the same lexical item and with the same original
> meaning - "daddy" - that Russian _otets_ "father" is sourced from?
>
> Did anyone else see the interview with the uncle now living in Maryland?
> His command of English was, IMO, impressively near-native, making me think
> that he had been important enough to have received a dynamite education,
> back in the old country. He pronounced his version of the family name
> as ['tsarni] and spelled it out for reporters as T-S-A-R-N-I. As to whether
> this is closer to the true Chechen pronunciation, further deponent sayeth
> not, knowing nothing about the Chechens other beyond the fact that the
> Russians have been shitting on the Chechens for centuries, since the days
> of the tsars, and that various well-known Russians, including Pushkin, were
> exiled thither as punishment, like unto getting  shipped out to the old
> United States Colored Troops (out)post, Fort Huachuca, Arizona, from
> Frankfurt, Germany.
>
> If the uncle spoke the names of his nephews, I missed it. But he did
> emphasize that neither of them had ever set foot into Chechnya.
>
> --
> -Wilson
> -----
> All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint to
> come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
> -Mark Twain
>
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