A cop-opera meme

[Jonathan Lighter]

He probably meant a Soviet-era T-22 "Backfire" bomber.

Wait a minute. "Soviet-era" means decades ago....

JL

On Fri, Jul 20, 2012 at 4:56 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      A cop-opera meme
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> 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
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