A similar misunderstanding

[shokooh Ingham]

Dear Bob,
I remember on my first trip to Persia I travelled by car via the then Yugoslavia and stayed about a week in Belgrade.  There I was mystified by often seeing some tall muscular blonde long haired and bearded men travelling on the bus like me, who looked very different from the average Yugoslav of the day.  I wondered who these people could be and with my rudimentary knowledge of the history of the region (I was only 19 at the time) I came to the conclusion that they must be Macedonians, possibly Macedonian nomads (do they exist?).  Eventually being satisfied with this conclusion, but wishing, as they say nowadays 'to reach closure' and I asked someone if they had seen these people and they said 'Oh yes I know them.  They are extras working on a film about the Vikings.'   Still Macedonian nomads wasn't too bad at that age.
Bruce


________________________________
 From: Anthony Grant <Granta at EDGEHILL.AC.UK>
To: SIOUAN at listserv.unl.edu 
Sent: Saturday, 24 August 2013, 23:46
Subject: Re: The joke's on you, Bob.
 

Great story, Bob - you wouldn't be the first linguist to jump to a wrong conclusion in precisely that way!

Anthony
________________________________________
From: Siouan Linguistics <SIOUAN at listserv.unl.edu> on behalf of Marianne Mithun <mithun at LINGUISTICS.UCSB.EDU>
Sent: 24 August 2013 17:14
To: SIOUAN at listserv.unl.edu
Subject: Re: The joke's on you, Bob.

Love it Bob!

Marianne

--On Saturday, August 24, 2013 5:10 PM +0000 "Rankin, Robert L."
<rankin at KU.EDU> wrote:

>
>
> Just a footnote to the Saganash saga.  A year or so ago I had an
> appointment in Topeka and drove in through the north (seedy) side of
> town.  I passed a place called the Sasnak Tavern and thought maybe the
> name was based on the Indian name for ‘British’ that we have just
> recently been discussing here (even though it was missing a bunch of
> phonemes).
>
>
>
> I managed to convince myself of this amazing discovery to the point that
> I even thought about stopping off for a beer to ask about the history of
> the bar’s name.  Then, driving away and feeling very proud of my
> intellectual prowess in recognizing such an obscure historical fact, I
> happened to glance in the rear view mirror and saw the mirror image of
> the name.
>
>
>
> Oh shit.
>
>
>
> Bob

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