A cop-opera meme
Wilson Gray
hwgray at GMAIL.COM
Fri Jul 20 20:56:11 UTC 2012
A. "Did [….] hear the shot?"
B. "Yes. But […] thought it was a backfire!"
What is up with this? Who under the age of sixty could possibly even
know what a "backfire" is, other than a way of dealing with forest
fires, let alone have heard backfires often enough to mistake a
gunshot for a backfire. I can remember when hearing backfires - and
blowouts - was a *very* common, several-times-a-day experience. Back
in the '40's.
--
-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
------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
More information about the Ads-l
mailing list