Date: Sat, 12 Oct 1996 07:18:56 -0400

From: Ron Butters RonButters[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]AOL.COM

Subject: medical Mondegreens and a legal one



A collegue from the Duke medical school and I did an article on such medical

terms a decade ago in the _North Carolina Medical Journal_--if anybody would

like a copy, lete me know--I still have a couple of offprints around.



By the way, there is a bilingual case of this sort of thing that has been

ossified in the protocols of the North Carolina Courts. As many of us know,

in the English tradition court is opened with the bailiff or somebody

shouting "Oyez! Oyez! Oyez!" (meaning, I guess, roughly 'Listen up!'). The

official printed directions for opening court in Raleigh, requires the

bailiff to shout, "Oh yes! Oh yes! Oh yes!" My theory is that "Oyez!" sounded

like "Oh yeah!"--and somewhere along the way some misguided purist decided

this should be made "more formal."



To my ears, the opening of court sounds like something out of the soundtrack

of a porn film.