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