LBS

[Douglas G. Wilson]

On 5/13/2011 10:41 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society<ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter<wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: LBS
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> At least OBGYN (pronounced as letters) is shorter than something even more
> unwieldy.
>
> But what's shorter than /paunz/?
>
> Too surreal?:  they don't know that "lbs." really means pounds. They think
> it abbreviates something that is the practical equivalent of pounds, but not
> pounds themselves. Like "legal burden sizes" or something.
>
> JL
>
> On Fri, May 13, 2011 at 9:04 PM, James Harbeck<jharbeck at sympatico.ca>wrote:
>
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> -----------------------
>> Sender:       American Dialect Society<ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       James Harbeck<jharbeck at SYMPATICO.CA>
>> Subject:      Re: LBS
>>
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>> We recently discussed the unusual use of "tornado" in automated National
>>> Weather Service Warnings.
>>> In a local Amber Alert this week, the abducted girl was described as
>>> weighing "115 /el bi es/", while her abductor weighed "184 /el bi es/."
>>>
>>> What's wrong with /paunz/? What's with these people? ....
--

Possibilities:

(1) Random sporadic error, can't think of a familiar word, familiar
abbreviation suddenly seems opaque, stage-fright by first-time
reader-on-the-air, or the like;

(2) Reader is simply not adequately literate;

(3) Reader is from elsewhere (are young Canadians fully metricized
nowadays?).

-- Doug Wilson

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