[Ads-l] "Who was Kilroy?" June 26, 1945 (in-print antedating?)

[Laurence Horn]

shnoz, shmoz, who nose.

> On Mar 26, 2021, at 4:27 PM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> 
> Whenever I say "shnozz" with a stuffed shnozz, I say "shdozz," not "shmoz."
> 
> JL
> 
> On Fri, Mar 26, 2021 at 3:17 PM Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>
> wrote:
> 
>>> On Mar 26, 2021, at 11:40 AM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
>> wrote:
>>> 
>>> Not sure why someone would produce fake Kilroy buttons for War Bonds and
>>> subtly backdating them to 1943.  To fool us perhaps? Of course, nothing
>> is
>>> impossible.
>>> 
>>> I don't see why the restorers would create a fake "Kilroy IS here" name
>> for
>>> the C-47. Maybe the Museum possesses a 1944 photo.
>>> 
>>> As for the frequency of KIlroy's appearance during the war, I will add
>> that
>>> I cannot recall many (or perhaps any) refs. to it in published wartime
>>> letters or memoirs.
>>> 
>>> It would probably take only two sightings in distant places to convince a
>>> person that Kilroy signs were "everywhere" in WW2.
>>> 
>>> Just as a data point: I checked with my wife about Gene Ahern's "Nov
>> shmoz
>>> ka pop," and - without prompting from me - she immediately associated it
>>> with a cartoon of "a little man with a big nose looking over a fence."  I
>>> associate the phrase only with the "little hitch-hiker" in Ahern's
>>> "Squirrel Cage" strip.
>>> 
>>> 
>> 
>> The big nose makes it seem as though “shmoz” somehow derives from
>> “shnoz”—maybe someone trying to say “shnoz” with a stuffed nose, or perhaps
>> “Nov shnoz” dissimilated to “Nov shmoz”.
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
> 
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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org