Hi, Mike!  Recently you wrote in a message to ARDITH HINTON:

AH>  Yes, awhile ago I mentioned a pun which I remembered
AH>  from a British magazine... khakis = car keys.  It works
AH>  in UK & ex-Brit Canadian English.  It doesn't work in
AH>  situations where "khaki" rhymes with "tacky", however
AH>  ....  :-)

MP>  Might work in Boston also.


          Yes... and in various other places along the Atlantic seaboard, by my
 reckoning.  While I've never been there myself Dallas spent some time in
Boston years ago & noticed the suppressed /r/.  The beauty of this pun IMHO is
that it seems to work regardless of who pronounces "khaki" as if it had an /r/
in it or who pronounces "car" as if it hadn't.  WRT New York State... see
below.

          Another example which I find interesting, informative, and amusing is
 one I ran across when our daughter chose to read James Fenimore Cooper's
series of novels about a character who is probably best known for his role in
THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS.  To make a long story short, if one persists in
reading all of these novels one may catch a glimpse of certain pre-Webster
American spellings. I noticed e.g. that the word "squaw" was spelled "squar" in
 a particular volume
... but not in more recent editions from different publishers.  When I saw this
 I thought to myself "Oh, wow... he's using British phonics!"  To test my
theory I reported my observation to a friend who grew up east of London.  She
couldn't understand what I was so excited about because she'd spell it "squar"
too.  :-)




--- timEd/386 1.10.y2k+
 * Origin: Wits' End, Vancouver CANADA (1:153/716)