P.E.P.?

[ronbutters at AOL.COM]

I was amazed to see that the word "pep" is in use for a new commercial product, much less one for erectile disfunction. I got a spam ad today with the folllowing testimonial";

 "I pleased how swiftly P.E.P. worked on my boyfriend, he can no way stop babbling about how hot he is having his new calibre, length, and libido!" Amelia B., Washington

Is "pep" making a vernacular comeback? It also occurs to me that some Bulgarian scammer may have selected "pep" from a dctionary without really unbderstanding how dated it is?

(If Dennis or a,yone needs to see the full ad, I can forward it to individuals")
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

-----Original Message-----
From: Dennis Preston <preston at MSU.EDU>

Date:         Fri, 10 Aug 2007 07:35:18
To:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject:      Re: [ADS-L] The earth v. Earth


Colleagues,

You all turn out to be right after all; I'm
really slow to catch on, and this time it wasn't
dialect pronunciation. It took me several
milliseconds to correctly (re)process "American
mfrs."

dInIs

PS: Was it a joke in the fist place? Are there
other exciting stories about abbreviation
ambiguity out there?

>---------------------- Information from the mail
>header -----------------------
>Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>Poster:       sagehen <sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM>
>Subject:      Re: The earth v. Earth
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>>
>>Of course, I'm abstracting away from the fact that any noun or
>>adjective in English can be made proper and, therefore, require
>>capitalization, as is the case with Tarzan's son, Boy. OTOH, cf,
>>German, in which every noun is capitalized. There's nothing intrinsic
>>about this sort of thing.
>>
>>-Wilson
>~~~~~~~~~~~
>The fastidious French, on the other hand, honor a proper noun by removing
>its capital when it has become so well-incorporated into French life that
>it is recognized as a fully-fledged French word.  American mfrs, with their
>jealous  & zealous protection of their precious brand names might be
>comforted by adopting the French attitude when some miscreant uses, e.g.,
>"kleenex" w/out cap or Å.
>AM
>
>
>
>~@:>   ~@:>   ~@:>   ~@:>
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org


--
Dennis R. Preston
University Distinguished Professor
Department of English
Morrill Hall 15-C
Michigan State University
East Lansing, MI 48864 USA

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

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