Who says ''Merkins''?

[Wilson Gray]

My favorite LBJ joke is the one about the genteel little old lady from
Texas who was delighted that the country had finally elected a
President who didn't speak with an accent.

BTW, Charlie, "hairs" is the usual BE term for pubic hair, "hair"
being used for all other meanings. Is your use of "hairs" for pubic
hair a mere slip of the finger or is this yet another instance of
pan-Southern usage?

-Wilson

On 10/20/06, Charles Doyle <cdoyle at uga.edu> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Charles Doyle <cdoyle at UGA.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: Who says ''Merkins''?
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> 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'.
>
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--
Everybody says, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange
complaint to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-----
Whoever has lived long enough to find out what life is knows how deep
a debt of gratitude we owe to Adam, the first great benefactor of our
race. He brought death into the world.

--Sam Clemens

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