Randomanea

[Wilson Gray]

A pun - well, it's a pun, if you're aware of BE "BIN" - based on intonation
in TV dialog; two white guys speaking:

A. "You mean, he's *dead*?! He's *dead*?!!! *That's* where he's been?!"
B. "Yep. He's *BIN* dead."

TV football color-man:

"He's from the University of Re[Z]ina."

OTOH, the voice-over for the local Jolie Beauty School's TV ad names it
after one of my high-school classmates: Joe Lee.

When I checked W:pedia to see who the Rosetta *Stone* was who wrote that
language-learning program, I found that the reference is to the *Rosetta*
stone.

Well, I haven't been confused by this intonation-pattern suggesting that
voice-over guys think that "Rosetta Stone" is like "Mavis Beacon" or
"Duncan Hines" or "Philip Morris." I'm only peeved.

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