battleship

[Jonathan Lighter]

The most famous Kearsarge sank the Alabama in 1864.

Brain-twister:
After the war, the United States pressed claims against the British Crown
over the Liverpool-launched, mid-Atlantic-commissioned Alabama.  Was the
Alabama crew a bunch of Brit-sponsored pirates (except for the officers,
they were all British subjects) preying on peaceful US shipping in the name
of an illegitimate "Confederate States of America"?   Or were they heroic
seamen battling an overbearing tyrant power messing with the harmless South?

International arbitration settled the matter.

JL



On Wed, Mar 2, 2011 at 1:41 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: battleship
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Wed, Mar 2, 2011 at 1:13 PM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > USS Kearsarge
>
> Up until the early '60's, this was the name of an aircraft carrier. My
> brother served aboard it, back in the day. Carriers used to be named
> after battles, no matter how historically obscure. Back in the '50's,
> I had a colleague who'd served aboard the carrier, USS Oriskany.
>
> KEER-sarge  a-RISS-k'ny
>
> --
> -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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