''Merkins'' and "Amerks"

[Laurence Horn]

At 9:43 AM -0400 10/20/06, Charles Doyle wrote:
>Yes, that was every language geek's favorite joke back in the LBJ
>era--even among us Texans who might not even have noticed the
>presidential pronunciation had we not known about merkins!
>
>The pubic wigs were (apparently) much in demand among ladies of
>fashion in the 17th century--perhaps to disguise the baldness that
>can result from syphilis.  And to think: now our female students
>(and some males) deliberately denude themselves of the very hairs
>that their forebears took such pains to replace . . . .
>
>--Charlie
>_________________________________________
>
>---- Original message ----
>>Date: Fri, 20 Oct 2006 09:14:40 EDT
>>From: RonButters at AOL.COM
>>Subject: Who says ''Merkins''?
>>
>  >It was a commonplace joke during the earlier years of the Viet Nam
>War that the president of the United States addressed the country as
>"My fellow Merkins." He was from Texas. Our dicitonaries told us
>that MERKIN means 'artifical pubic hair'.
>
Back to "Merkins" again.  I just found the above exchange while going
through my mailer and was reminded that I had intended to note an odd
truncation that I'd totally forgotten before spending a weekend back
at my alma mater, the U. of Rochester, a little while ago.  The
51-year-old American Hockey League franchise in the Lilac City is (as
it was back in the 60s) officially designated as the Rochester
Americans, but is still referred to, as it has been at least since my
day, as the Amerks [stress on first syllable]. I don't think there
are any other contexts in which a group of "Americans"  are "Amerks",
and a quick glance at the first few of the 99,300 purported raw
google hits tend to confirm this.  Presumably it's the lack of any
transparent connection here with "America" that facilitated the
reduction.  I suppose it could have been worse; at least there are no
headlines announcing, say,
"Hershey Bears trim Merkins, 3-2"

LH

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org