Louisville

[James A. Landau <JJJRLandau@netscape.com>]

Tue, 22 May 2012 21:54:52 zone minus 0700 (that's way out there by ADS standards) Benjamin Barrett <gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM> wrote:
Subject:

>In the NPR Hourly News feed (21:16:04 PDT, 22 May), Shay Stevens
>pronounces Louisville as I understand it's pronounced locally: LOO uh
>vuhl. It's 11 seconds into the feed.

Yes, Loo uh vuhl is the local pronunciation.  You can buy bumper stickers that read
"I [heart symbol] Louavul".

    - Jim Landau (native of there)

On Tue, 22 May 2012 22:39:30 of the suddenly popular zone minus 0700 Indigo Som <indigo at WELL.COM> wrote:

>If I may trouble y'all for your thoughts... where did the common pair
>"smart, sensible" come from, &/or why does it sound like it must have
>originated somewhere specific (like an ad campaign)? Smart & sensible
>separately would seem to be almost interchangeable to most people, but
>together they sound to me like an evocation of, hmm... down-to-earth,
>old-fashioned common sense.

"smart" and "sensible" were never particularly good synonyms.  Think of the stereotypical absent-minded professor: definitely smart, but hardly sensible.

I am reminded of a passage in Heinlein's _The Moon is a Harsh Mistress_ where a character ("Judge" someone) was given a key military position by the narrator because the Judge "had unlimited horse sense" or words to that effect.

Which reminds me:  My father told me that the German language had no equivalent to the English terms "common sense" or "horse sense".  Is this true?

    - Jim Landau (who picked the Preakness winner, so hopefully I have an epsilon of horse sense)

PS: thanks to those who responded to my request for info on "laws and sausages"

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