perMIT, n.

[Jonathan Lighter]

Also in _Sinner's Holiday_ (1930): "About three weeks ago, I got you a
per-MIT to get a gun."

The actor speaking (Purnell Pratt) was born in 1885 on Bethel, Ill.
Accordding to IMDb, he attended both USC and the University of Pennsylvania.

Dunno if he used the pronunciation off camera.

JL

On Fri, Aug 5, 2011 at 12:46 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> 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: perMIT, n.
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> 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
>
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>



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