"cumberbund"

[Lynne Murphy]

But in western NYS, I knew it as 'cumberbund'.  I would've thought the
'mispronunciation' is at least as widespread (if not more) than the 'real'
pronunciation.

Lynne

--On 19 November 2008 21:11 -0500 "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET> wrote:

> At 11/19/2008 08:11 PM, RonButters at AOL.COM wrote:
>
>> DARE has both CUMMER and CUMBER as (seemingly rare) forms for 'pickled
>> cucumbers'. No CUMBERBUND or CUMMERBUND.
>>
>> The only pronunciation of the term I've ever known is   with the B.
>> Before the highschool prom, my saucy aunt cautioned me to be sure to
>> enunciate the B clearly, lest people think I was being obscene.
>
> I, having been well-educated in New York City, and Webster (New
> World, Collegiate Edition) both know it only as "cummerbund", and
> know it is from the Urdu and Persian for "loin band".  (My) Roget
> doesn't have it, so I don't know what else I can call it.
>
> Joel



Dr M Lynne Murphy
Senior Lecturer in Linguistics and English Language
Arts B135
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QN

phone: +44-(0)1273-678844
http://separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com

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