Who says ''Merkins''?

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On 10/20/06, Charles Doyle <cdoyle at uga.edu> 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!

And from the same era, let's not forget that joint creation of Stanley
Kubrick, Terry Southern, and Peter Sellers: President Merkin Muffley.

(Muffley was intended as a parody of Adlai Stevenson, not LBJ, though.)


--Ben Zimmer

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