swabbie, swabbo

[Wilson Gray]

On Fri, Sep 12, 2014 at 2:32 PM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> It means a sailor


That "swabbie" both requires definition and is also missing from the OED is
really surprising!

OTOH, "swabbo" is totally new to me. Could it have originated as someone's
"correction" of "swabbie," perhaps? Some may recall the word that I have
eye-phoneticized as "muh-RYE-no," a word in some varieties of BE - or only
in my native variety, perhaps - used to name a specific skin-tone found
among black Americans. In fact, I've never heard that pronunciation. It's a
"correction" of the actual "muh-RAAH-nih", approx. [m at .'ra:nI], with the
lower-than-ash "a" of the IPA as the stressed vowel.


-- 
-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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