" Olive, the other reindeer"; was Re: "Trolling" for "Trawling": An Eggcorn?

[Jonathan Lighter]

This has got to be a joke, not a trfue misunderstanding, as the relevant lines are,

  "All of the other reindeer,
  Used to laugh and call him names.
  THEY wouldn't let poor Rudolph
  Play in any reindeer games."

  Even if your own name is Olive, and all your female relatives are named Olive, and your favorite character is Olive Oyl, you will understand "all of" as  meaning "all of," at least if your attention span is long enough to get to the operative pronoun.

  Though you might pretend otherwise.

  JL
Charles Doyle <cdoyle at UGA.EDU> wrote:
  ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Charles Doyle
Subject: Re: " Olive, the other reindeer"; was Re: "Trolling" for
"Trawling": An Eggcorn?
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Wilson, it's "All of the other reindeer," mumbled by those sad folks bereft of the "open o."

--Charlie
___________________________________________________________

---- Original message ----
>Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2007 17:36:42 -0400
>From: Wilson Gray

>
>Is "Olive, the other reindeer" a mishearing of "Oh, how the other reindeer"? It's the only thing that I can think of that comes close to making sense. Even so, I get the nonsensical "Oh [laiv] the other reindeer"' more easily than "Olive."
>
>-Wilson

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