If U Seek Amy

[Sam Clements]

Off track---Did Joyce invent the "if you see Kay?"

Sam Clements

----- Original Message -----
From: "Benjamin Zimmer" <bgzimmer at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU>
To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Sent: Thursday, January 22, 2009 21:00
Subject: Re: If U Seek Amy


> On Thu, Jan 22, 2009 at 5:51 PM, Baker, John <JMB at stradley.com> wrote:
>>
>>        The latest Britney Spears controversy is her new single, If U
>> Seek Amy, bowdlerized on some radio stations to If U See Amy.  There
>> have, of course, been a number of different songs with the title If You
>> See Kay (and Joyce earlier used the line in Ulysses), but Britney's song
>> seems qualitatively different to me, in that it's hard to get a reading
>> of the song's words other than "F U C K me."  Here's the refrain:
>>
>> Love me, hate me
>> Say what you want about me
>> But all of the boys and all of the girls are begging to If U Seek Amy
>> Love me, hate me
>> But can't you see what I see?
>> All of the boys and all of the girls are begging to If You Seek Amy
>>
>>        In spite of my reading, I've seen a number of online posts where
>> commenters mentioned that they did not get the pun until it was pointed
>> out to them.  In any case, it seems a higher class of controversy for
>> Britney than she has encountered in the not-too-distant past.
>
> High-class indeed -- Joycean, even, with its echo of "If you see Kay"
> from _Ulysses_.
>
>
> --Ben Zimmer
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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