The Colbert Report: "soda water"

[David Bowie]

From:    Charles Doyle <cdoyle at UGA.EDU>

> I didn't mean that the reduplicated "RC cocola" or "RC cocacola"
> isn't heard "in the wild." I was suggesting that it's heard mainly
> (if not exclusively) as a joke--you know, that strange proclivity
> that (we) "Rednecks" have for satirizing our own folkways and
> language.

Ah, got it. At least in *my* use of it (which is rare) and *my*
perception of it (which is less rare), though, "RC cocola" isn't an
in-joke, whereas "RC cocacola" would be.

To me, as i wrote before, the first [ko] in what i perceive as "RC Co
Cola" is a spoken "Co.", the abbreviation for "company", as in the
"Royal Crown Company". I don't know if there ever was, in fact, a Royal
Crown Company, but that's what i heard it as. If not, is there a term
for a *perceptual* eggcorn?

Of course, where i'm from nobody uses "Co-Cola" for Coke. That probably
affects my perception of this, as well.

--
David Bowie                               University of Central Florida
     Jeanne's Two Laws of Chocolate: If there is no chocolate in the
     house, there is too little; some must be purchased. If there is
     chocolate in the house, there is too much; it must be consumed.

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