Who is Rosetta Stone?

[Dennis Baron]

Gee, Wilson, I always thought that Rosetta Stone was the woman who got
on the bus after Rosa Parks, and her first language wan't Anglish, it
was Yiddish (her name had been Stein, and believe me, she couldn't
sing for bupkes).
____________________
Dennis Baron
Professor of English and Linguistics
Department of English
University of Illinois
608 S. Wright St.
Urbana, IL 61801

office: 217-244-0568
fax: 217-333-4321

http://illinois.edu/goto/debaron

read the Web of Language:
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On Sep 6, 2008, at 1:46 PM, Wilson Gray wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Who is Rosetta Stone?
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> You're wrong, Dennis. Rosetta Stone was a founder of the National
> Association of Colored Women's Clubs. Though born in a sharecropper's
> shack in the Mississippi Delta, by listening to recordings of the
> speeches of Eleanor Roosevelt, she managed to lose her Southern-Negro
> brogue and train herself to speak Proper Anglish, to the extent that
> she was often mistaken for an upper-class white woman when she spoke
> to the colored masses over the radio, thereby commanding their
> respect, attention, and admiration. Hence, her connection with
> language-learning by the use of recordings and the fact that the
> company doesn't use her likeness in its ads.
>
> Little-known fact: The late, great Gospel-songstress, "Sister"
> _Rosetta_ Tharp[sic] was named in her honor.
>
> -Wilson
>
> On Sat, Sep 6, 2008 at 12:36 PM, Dennis Baron <debaron at illinois.edu>
> wrote:
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> -----------------------
>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       Dennis Baron <debaron at ILLINOIS.EDU>
>> Subject:      Re: Who is Rosetta Stone?
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> I thought Rosetta Stone was one of the early organizers of the ILGWU,
>> a labor leader who fought for the rights of exploited acronym makers
>> in the early 1900s.
>> ____________________
>> Dennis Baron
>> Professor of English and Linguistics
>> Department of English
>> University of Illinois
>> 608 S. Wright St.
>> Urbana, IL 61801
>>
>> office: 217-244-0568
>> fax: 217-333-4321
>>
>> http://illinois.edu/goto/debaron
>>
>> read the Web of Language:
>> http://illinois.edu/goto/weboflanguage
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Sep 6, 2008, at 11:28 AM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>>
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>>> -----------------------
>>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM>
>>> Subject:      Re: Who is Rosetta Stone?
>>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>
>>> I notice that in=A0the latest commercial, Michael Phelps (always)
>>> and the a=
>>> nnouncer (predominantly) both favor the "Coretta King" stress
>>> pattern.
>>> =A0
>>> Since a tiny Rosetta stone is the company's emblem, I can only
>>> presume that=
>>> they've abandoned their project of underestimating the knowledge of
>>> the Am=
>>> erican people.=20
>>> =A0
>>> Look for: future ads with=A0a lady=A0in Sarah Palin glasses ("flying
>>> off th=
>>> e shelves," according to Fox) saying, "Want to learn a language
>>> fast? Hi! I=
>>> 'm=A0 Rosetta Stone...."
>>> =A0
>>> JL=0A=0A=0A
>>>
>>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> 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.
> -----
> -Mark Twain
>
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