The wiener and its warming (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Laurence Horn]

On Nov 1, 2011, at 9:14 AM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:

> But (Klaus) Barbie is stressed on his final syllable.
>
> There is no phonetic identity in the U.S. (or my idiolectal slice of
> it) between Klaus Barbie, Mattel's Barbie, and an English bobby.
>
>

Well, I did acknowledge the last one was a stretch, but I've heard those who were attempting an English accent and who were confused about an Australian accent pronounce the copper bobby and the shrimp-on-the-barbie in approximately the same way, something like ['ba:bi] with a long and just slightly r-colored vowel in the first syllable.  And I certainly recall puns, mostly in bad taste, on Barbie dolls and (Klaus) Barbie during the period of the capture and war crimes trial of the latter.  These puns were originated by non-German speakers who no doubt were guessing as to the proper native stress pattern of Herr Barbie's name.

LH

>
> On Mon, Oct 31, 2011 at 6:39 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
>> Subject:      Re: The wiener and its warming (UNCLASSIFIED)
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> On Oct 31, 2011, at 4:39 PM, Mullins, Bill AMRDEC wrote:
>>
>>> Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
>>> Caveats: NONE
>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> As long as you pronounce it "BAA-bie" /'bae:bi/, to distinguish it
>>> clearly
>>>> from the doll, the copper, and the Nazi.
>>>>>
>>>>> LH
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Barbie is the only one of those I got.
>>>>
>>> The doll is Mattel's Barbie.
>>>
>>> Dunno the copper.
>>>
>>> The Nazi is Klaus Barbie.
>>
>> And the copper is the British policeman, a.k.a. "bobby".  A bit of a stretch, to be sure.
>>
>> LH
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>
>
>
>
> --
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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