LL-L "Lexicon" 2004.09.12 (08) [E]

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From: Kevin Caldwell <kcaldwell31 at comcast.net>
Subject: LL-L "Lexicon" 2004.09.12 (04) [E]

> From: john feather <johnfeather at sceptic1.freeserve.co.uk>
> Subject: Etymology
>
> Gabriele wrote:
>
> "And I'll have you know that, in my eight years in the USA, I asked
> several
> smart, educated people what "varsity" meant, and no-one could ever tell
me.
> So there."
>
> Maybe it's one of those politeness things. But I once wanted to know what
> you call in US English the sort of metal container pipe tobacco or cough
> lozenges used to come in. Since I happened to be invited to a party by an
> American woman and some of her other guests were Americans I put the point
> to them in the course of conversation. I didn't get any sensible answers.
> A
> year or two later I was invited by the same woman again but told that I
> had
> annoyed her guests (or maybe her) before by demanding precise information
> on
> a trivial point and I wasn't to do it again. I politely remembered a
> previous engagement. I deduce that either she was as mad as a hattress or
> asking Americans what words mean breaks some bizarre tabu. Maybe something
> to do with the melting pot?

No taboo that I know of.  You probably just ran into a group of Americans
who don't really care about linguistic matters (probably not hard to do). If
you had asked me, I would have answered your question and not been offended
in the least.  Pipe tobacco comes in a can (leading to the old telephone
prank, "Do you have Prince Albert in a can?...  You do? Well, why don't you
let him out?") and throat lozenges, AKA cough drops, come in a box.

Kevin Caldwell

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