perMIT, n.

[Wilson Gray]

On Fri, Aug 5, 2011 at 8:55 AM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com> wrote:
> In the movie _Blackwell's Island_ (1939), starring the great John Garfield,
> a prison guard explains clearly that a visitor "has a perMIT signed by the
> Deputy Commissioner of Corrections."
>

_perMIT in wide use since at least 1939? (I assume "wide," based on
the assumption that  the "guard" was portrayed by a white actor.) That
certainly jibes with my personal experience, though, till now, I'd
been under the misprehapprehension that it was essentially only a BE
thing.

I keep forgetting that, in reality. I've lived my entire life without
any true social contact whatsoever with white people, despite the fact
that, my God! they're everywhere! Hence, I lack any gefuehl for the
sprach of "the other group."

--
-Wilson
-----
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

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