"Joker"

Laurence Horn laurence.horn at YALE.EDU
Thu Apr 25 20:41:42 UTC 2013


On Apr 25, 2013, at 4:22 PM, W Brewer wrote:

> It would not be unreasonable to speculate that some parents want their sons
> to live up to the ideals of Mohammed, Moses, or Grover Cleveland.
>
Or at least Mohammad Ali, Moses Maimonides, or Grover Cleveland Alexander (especially in that Game 7 vs. the Yankees).

LH
>
> On Fri, Apr 26, 2013 at 3:56 AM, Cleve Evans
> <cleveland.evans at bellevue.edu>wrote:
>
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> -----------------------
>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       Cleve Evans <cleveland.evans at BELLEVUE.EDU>
>> Subject:      Re: "Joker"
>>
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> I'd just like to point out that in the absence of either direct
>> information from the person himself or his parents, and without knowing
>> anything about how common the name Tamerlan has been historically in
>> Chechnya and Dagestan, the idea that Tamerlan was some sort of "burden"
>> this guy had to "live up to" may be just as silly as speculating that the
>> actions of an American named William, George, or Al have something to do
>> with trying to "live up to" the memory of William the Conqueror, George
>> Washington, or Al Capone.
>>
>>
>> On 4/25/13 12:02 AM, Automatic digest processor wrote:
>>>>>>>>> Russified <Tsarnaev> [tsahr-NA-yeff] variously anglified:
>>>>>>>>> [zar-NA-yev], even heard an early [Sarnoff]. The patronymic
>>>>>>>>> <Anzorovich> identifies the alleged father, <Anzor>. Black hat
>>>>>>>>> Tamerlan [tammer-LANN] (no doubt yearned to live up to his
>>>>>>>>> namesake, Tamerlane 1336-1405, <When I rise from the dead, the
>>>>>>>>> world shall tremble!>)
>>> I'm so glad that I'm not the only one who was thinking that. I have
>>> not heard a peep re: this on the one medieval list I read. (And my
>>> youngest played soccer with a Timur. . . ) I downloaded Marlowe's
>> "Tamburlaine"
>>> to read, but I can't recall what the medieval source would have been
>>> that Marlowe used. . .
>> And then later on in the day I remembered the connection between Boston
>> and the name "Tamerlane" that had been nagging at the back of my mind:
>>
>> Poe's first collection of poems was published in Boston in 1829?. The
>> title? _Tamerlane and Other Poems_. While Poe was born in Boston, he didn't
>> grow up here, and he left Boston in a huff after the publication.
>>
>> ---Amy West
>>
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>>
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>>
>
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