silly and off-topic

[Lynne Murphy]

--On Friday, June 14, 2002 12:28 pm +0000 "James A. Landau"
<JJJRLandau at AOL.COM> wrote:

> We now have two contradictory statements from England:
>
> "'It's traditional Bash Street Kids, English schoolboy, turn your baseball
> cap backwards and fire kind of thing,' said organiser Tom Wood."
>
> implying that wearing baseball caps backwards is as English as Bashing
> Street Kids,  and
>
> "the redoubtable Prof. Trudgill went around
> annoying us Yanks by asking:
> Q: "What do you do to make a yank drop 50 degrees of intelligence?"
> A: Turn his baseball cap around backwards."
>
> implying that the English view wearing a hat backwards as a sign of
> stupidity.
>
>        - Jim Landau


Perhaps this leads to the conclusion that partaking in pea-shooting
contests is a sign of English stupidity, and that's why they turn their
hats backward(s) for it.

Lynne

Dr M Lynne Murphy
Lecturer in Linguistics
Acting Director, MA in Applied Linguistics
School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

phone +44-(0)1273-678844
fax   +44-(0)1273-671320