"opening the kimono" (1979?, 1984)

[Wilson Gray]

On Jun 20, 2005, at 2:09 PM, Mark A. Mandel wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Mark A. Mandel" <mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: "opening the kimono" (1979?, 1984)
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> Victoria Neufeldt <vneufeldt at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM> quoth:
>>>>>
> Doug Wilson made a good point about the use of the term 'kimono'.
> That's what we used to use for 'housecoat', pronounced something like
> (k@ mo' n@) with "long o" in the stressed syllable and the last vowel
> not really a '@', but almost an 'a' as in 'far'.  I knew the word as a
> kid in western Canada, long before I ever saw it in print.  When I
> first saw it, I was very surprised by the spelling and henceforth felt
> self-conscious about saying it.
> <<<<
>
> I've seen it written "kimona", I *think* as 'housecoat'; not in the
> context
> of "open the...". But of course a person learning it as 'housecoat'
> could
> easily have carried the pron. & spelling back to the Japanese garment
> once
> they learned of it.
>
> -- Mark A. Mandel
>

Mark, I've asked you and I've asked you not to read my personal
correspondence! ;-)

-Wilson