[Ads-l] Heard, The FBI Files: "The hatred between the [Orthodox] Serbs and the [Catholic] Croats...

Wilson Gray hwgray at GMAIL.COM
Thu May 11 06:35:47 UTC 2017


is so deep that it is hard for Americans to _fanthom_."


Full disclosure: I used the pronunciation, "phanthom," for _phantom_, for
most of my life, having learned the word as the the title of the
comic-strip, _The Phantom_, by Saint Louis's own Lee Falk and Wilson McCoy,
in addition to "fanthom" for _fathom_.

Anecdote. While standing in line at the registrar's office at UCLA, another
guy in line and I struck up a conversation. He said that he had originally
come to the States from Yugoslavia to play soccer for Saint Louis
University, whence he had subsequently been stolen by UCLA. But he'd gotten
hurt and UCLA had stripped him of his bennies. He was going to complain to
the registrar about this.

Combining Yugoslavia with St. Louis U., a Catholic institution, I idly
commented, "So, you're a Croat." He replied, "NO! I'm a *Serb*! We *hate*
those fucking Croats!"
--
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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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org



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