anise

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On Wed, Aug 20, 2008 at 4:39 PM, Benjamin Zimmer
<bgzimmer at babel.ling.upenn.edu> wrote:
>
> On Wed, Aug 20, 2008 at 4:34 PM, Charles Doyle <cdoyle at uga.edu> wrote:
> >
> > Accounts of the unfortunate naming of young Shithead abound in (and from) countless
> > locales (all of them also "absolutely true")--along with the naming of the twin girls
> > Lemonjello [l@ 'man j@ lo] and Orangejello, and the lad Nosmo King (from a sign glimpsed
> > in the hospital maternity ward). The jokes often have a racist component--perhaps an
> > unintended tribute the greater freedom in African American naming practices.
>
> http://www.snopes.com/racial/language/names.asp

Further discussion here:

http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2008/08/25/creative_black_names/print.html


--Ben Zimmer

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