[Ads-l] Can you say "Cossack"?

[imwitty]

I have to confess:

1. I don’t have any idea regarding origins of that particular biker gang …
and the rest of them.

2. I don’t have any idea how they chose their name.

3. I don’t have any idea how those bikers pronounce that name.

4. I don’t have any idea why police officers AND that CNN reporter
AUTHORITATIVELY could pronounce that name the way you quoted.



But I suspect that somebody related to that gang had connection to Russia
and/or Ukraine, or at least somehow familiar with those countries and/or
their history, or just the literature – A. Pushkin, N. Gogol, M. Sholochow,
I. Babel, etc. See this article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cossacks. It
appears there are some of them in the USA http://www.kazaksusa.com/. In the
first line of the Wikipedia article you will find the CORRECT pronunciation
of the ORIGINAL name.


PS: Sorry about caps, but ADS server doesn't like many symbols and other
text formatting...




On Mon, May 18, 2015 at 5:25 AM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Can you say "Cossack"?
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> As can be seen from the correctly spelled logo on their jackets, one of the
> biker gangs involved in yersterdays Waco mayhem was called the "Cossacks"
>
> After checking with the police, the on-the-spot CNN reporter referred to
> them authoritatively as the  / 'kou saeks/.
>
> JL
>
> --
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



-- 
L.
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