Randomanea

Jonathan Lighter wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM
Tue Jan 14 01:42:02 UTC 2014


As I observed many years ago, "Rosetta STONE" may be influenced to some
degree by "Rosetta KING."

JL


On Mon, Jan 13, 2014 at 4:51 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:      Randomanea
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> A pun - well, it's a pun, if you're aware of BE "BIN" - based on intonation
> in TV dialog; two white guys speaking:
>
> A. "You mean, he's *dead*?! He's *dead*?!!! *That's* where he's been?!"
> B. "Yep. He's *BIN* dead."
>
> TV football color-man:
>
> "He's from the University of Re[Z]ina."
>
> OTOH, the voice-over for the local Jolie Beauty School's TV ad names it
> after one of my high-school classmates: Joe Lee.
>
> When I checked W:pedia to see who the Rosetta *Stone* was who wrote that
> language-learning program, I found that the reference is to the *Rosetta*
> stone.
>
> Well, I haven't been confused by this intonation-pattern suggesting that
> voice-over guys think that "Rosetta Stone" is like "Mavis Beacon" or
> "Duncan Hines" or "Philip Morris." I'm only peeved.
>
> --
> -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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