Merkins

[Lynne Murphy]

Whether anyone actually says _Merkin_ or not, it's the way that some
people's pronunciation of it is perceived/satirized.  Earlier this month, I
went to a political sketch show (The Treason Show;
<http://homepage.mac.com/mark.brailsford/tshow/>) where the Merkin/pubic
wig joke was made--the George Bush character always says _Mer(i)kin_.
(Unfortunately, there are no GWB sketches on their website.)

In general, _Merkin_ is used ('round these parts, but also, in my
experience, among some left-of-center Americans) when one wants to refer to
(or to parody someone who has) a particular kind of stereotyped American
mindset--Ameri-centric, fairly ignorant of how the rest of the world works,
creationist, possibly obese, etc. etc.

When it's pronounced, it tends to have a long 'r' to make up for the
missing vowel.  Merrkin.

Lynne


Dr M Lynne Murphy
Senior Lecturer and Head of Department
Linguistics and English Language
Arts B135
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QN

phone: +44-(0)1273-678844
http://separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com

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