Wildfires v. Forest Fires

[James A. Landau]

In a message dated Sun, 7 Mar 2004 11:39:50 -0800,  Dave Wilton
<dave at WILTON.NET> complains:

>  This has come up on ADS-L in the past, but I note that Smokey The Bear's
>  tagline has changed to "Only you can prevent wildfires." I don't know when
>  the shift from "forest fires" occurred, but I heard it in a TV ad today. I
>  thought it might be language targeted for a California audience, but
>  "wildfire" is used on the web site www.smokeybear.com.

The original "Only you can prevent forest fires" almost scans:

      'on-ly ''you / can pre-''vent / ''for-est 'fires

i.e. if you ignore the primary accent on the first syllable of "forest" you
have three anapests.

"Only you can prevent wildfires" doesn't come close to scanning.

As to when Smokey the Bear lost his middle name, I have a suspicion that
the phrase "Smokey Bear"  originated in the Citizens' Band community.  At
least I don't recall having heard it before the CB fad in 1974.

Circa 1980 an Englishwoman asked me "why do you refer to your [state] police
officers as 'bears'" and I was able to respond with a straight face, "Because
of the hats they wear!"

Historical trivia:  the custom of having State Troopers wear campaign hats
("Smokey the Bear hats") originated here in New Jersey.  It was introduced by
the founder of the New Jersey State Police, one H. Norman Schwartzkopf (father
of the Gulf War general).

          - James A. Landau