What's all this got to do with the price of Matabele gumbo beans

[Joel S. Berson]

At 10/15/2011 10:04 AM, Arnold Zwicky wrote:
>On Oct 15, 2011, at 5:57 AM, Victor Steinbok wrote on these "price" queries.
>
>the most entertaining variant i know is "What's that got to do with
>the price of Matabele gumbo beans?" -- this from conversation with
>Geoff Pullum many years ago.  no ghits for "price of Matabele gumbo
>beans", unfortunately.

I assume everyone knows that Matabele is the language spoken to the
Reverend Lord Henry D'Ascoyne shortly before his untimely demise.

Googling "matabele gumbo beans" , though, tells me there is continued
interest in them as a fungible commodity, like Indian corn  and other
grains in colonial Massachusetts.  Discussed in The Economist in vol.
335, page 52, allegedly 1995 (GBooks snippet).

Joel

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