Pronunciation? Pshaw!

[David Bowie]

In the thread: possible antedate of indiscriminative "whatever"?
sagehen wrote about "pshaw":

> The P is silent.  I don't think I've heard anyone say this since 1945, when
> my father, who used the expression "Oh, pshaw!" often, died.  He was born
> in 1878 in Ohio, so his idiolect exhibited a lot of 19th Cent features
> that were otherwise rarely heard in the middlewestern speech of my
> childhood.

My mother (b. 1945 and raised in Southern Maryland) uses it, and she
pronounces it with a [pS] consonant cluster, no schwa.

> As for meaning.......?  Hmmm.  I suppose it stood for "what a shame" most
> often, but sometimes merely casting doubt, as in "oh, pooh."  My brother &
> I at that time would probably have said "oh, foo!" after the comic strip
> "Smokey Stover."

In my mother's usage, it clearly means pretty much what i mean with a
contemptuous (as opposed to purely dismissive) "As if!"

--
David Bowie                                         http://pmpkn.net/lx
     Jeanne's Two Laws of Chocolate: If there is no chocolate in the
     house, there is too little; some must be purchased. If there is
     chocolate in the house, there is too much; it must be consumed.

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