Date: Wed, 21 Jan 1998 19:47:21 -0500

From: Gregory {Greg} Downing downingg[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]IS2.NYU.EDU

Subject: Re: folk tale, "1, 2, 3"



At 07:00 PM 1/21/98 -0500, you (baragonasa[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]vax.vmi.edu) wrote:

I was told this story as a joke, not a traditional folktale, but the

setting was the medieval Rome during the Plague, and the disputants were

the Pope and the head Rabbi. The punchline, however, is decidedly modern

and, as told to me, very unfolklorish. Now I actually use the joke in

my Intro to Linguistics class when we discuss semiotics.





I'm not sure of the sense in which Beth Simon used "folklore" in her

original post, but I meant it in the sense of modern/urban folklore, without

necessarily making any claims about antiquity. Where's the US dialect facet,

though?



Greg Downing/NYU, at greg.downing[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]nyu.edu or downingg[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]is2.nyu.edu