No mo' "ho ho ho"

[Wilson Gray]

Come on, now, y'all! Can it really be the case that all uses of [ho]
have shifted their primary meaning to that of the BE [ho], "whore," so
that the first meaning that enters a person's mind when he hears [ho]
or reads "Ho," "ho," etc. is "prostitute"? That's not even true of all
monodialectal speakers of BE!

Aw, wait a minute. I get it! Y'all jus' messin' wit me, right?

-Wilson

On 11/15/07, Doug Harris <cats22 at frontiernet.net> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Doug Harris <cats22 at FRONTIERNET.NET>
> Subject:      Re: No mo' "ho ho ho"
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Well, now that you mention it:
> A not-unrelated thought occurred to me yesterday when I passed a business
> with a sign advertising it as "Ho Market". Now it is _possible_ that
> someone would draw the wrong conclusion and/or make 'funny' comments to
> an employee or the owner. There's also the chance that someone would have
> described a late Hawaiian singer's child (if he had one) as son/daughter
> of a Ho. And some such name-callers imagine, somehow, that the insult
> recipient never heard that taunt before. Go figure.
> (the other) doug
>
> Wilson wrote:
> Could it truly be the case that *anyone* could possible believe that
> women or children hearing a man in a Santa Clause costume saying "Ho!
> Ho! Ho!" would think that the man was using the BE term for
> "Prostitute! Prostitute! Prostitute!"? Y'all must be done lost y'all's
> minds.
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>


--
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

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