Names With Zing

[Lynne Murphy]

Reminds me of the story of why a family friend always went by the name
'Chris'.  She was in a college class and the prof called out her
name--Crystal Smith*--while calling out the roll.  She responded with a
'here', but he didn't hear her, and, thinking she was absent, went on to
share his opinion that that was a prostitute's name.  This was in the
1960s. One hopes that such things aren't said in classrooms these
days...but I wouldn't bet on it.

*Not her real last name!

Back on the topic of silent 't' in 'often'--I always said it (western NY
state), and wasn't told I was wrong until I got to college (Massachusetts).
I hear it regularly in the UK.

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

--On Tuesday, June 12, 2007 11:52 pm -0400 Doug Harris
<cats22 at FRONTIERNET.NET> wrote:

> That is not, of course, the subject head we
> were using a few days or so ago re the matter
> of names that live on in memory for their...
> well, for their 'zing'.
> 'Just watched the movie Biloxi Blues, in which
> several WWII era soldier have their initial
> introduction to in-the-flesh sex, and sex with
> a prostitute. The latter character's name was
> Rowena, which could be said to sound sort of
> prostitutey in a Biloxi sort of way.
> The actress who played Rowena was named Park
> Overall. Now _THERE's a prostitutey name for
> ya!!!
> (the other) doug

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