comic 1860s pronunciation?

[Victor Steinbok]

I am wondering if this is true. I was under impression that "ossifer"
and similar expressions were quite common in jokes in the 1970s and 80s.
Certainly I frequently heard a joke in college (mid-80s) with the
punchline, "No, ossifer, there is no such aminal." Perhaps we are
sometimes so obsessed with antedating print that we forget about speech?
Inverse recency fallacy?

     VS-)

On 1/18/2010 8:33 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
> ... Anyway, this level of word play
> seems to have had somewhat greater prestige then than it does now.  Consider
> _ossifer_ (officer) and _avalanche_ (ambulance) and _jigadier brindle_, all
> in HDAS. ...
>
> JL
>
>

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