Putin

[Jonathan Lighter]

Right. No "poot" in NYC.

  JL

Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU> wrote:
  ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Laurence Horn
Subject: Re: Putin
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At 8:32 PM -0400 6/6/07, Wilson Gray wrote:
>On 6/6/07, Charles Doyle wrote:
>>---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>-----------------------
>>Sender: American Dialect Society
>>Poster: Charles Doyle
>>Subject: Re: Putin
>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>The "poot"/"toot" distinction reminds me of two cherished rhymes
>>from my childhood:
>>
>>Beans, beans, the magic fruit--
>>The more you eat, the more you poot.
>>The more you poot, the better you feel:
>>Let's have beans for every meal!
>>
>>Sweet potatoes, the musical root--
>>The more you eat, the more you toot.
>>
>>For me, "poot" was the normal term for the flatulent phenomenon;
>>"toot" in the second poem was a metaphor.
>>
>>Once again, it appears that Wilson and I grew up (in eastern Texas)
>>in very similar dialect and folk groups--aside from certain small
>>details like skin color!
>>
>>--Charlie
>>_____________________________________________________________
>
>Exactly so, Charlie! There's only one very trivial difference: "We eat
>beans ..." in place of "Let's have beans ..." Otherwise, what you
>learned is exactly the same as what I learned, word for word.
>
>-Wilson

My version (NYC) was

Beans, beans, the magical fruit,
The more you eat, the more you toot.
The more you toot, the better you feel,
So eat beans with every meal.

No pootin' allowed.

LH

>>---- Original message ----
>>>Date: Wed, 6 Jun 2007 00:36:34 -0400
>>>From: Wilson Gray
>>>Subject: Re: Putin
>>>
>>>FWIW, I prefer even that to "Pootn," if for no other reason that,
>>>for a lot of AmE speakers, including your humble correspondent,
>>>pootin' is the same as fartin', though, for other AmE speakers,
>>>it's tootin', and not not pootin', that's the same as fartin'.
>>>
>>>-Wilson
>>
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>
>
>--
>All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
>come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
>-----
> -Sam'l Clemens
>
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