Date:  Mon, 18 Sep 1995 10:08:55 EDT

From:  Larry Horn <LHORN[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]YALEVM.CIS.YALE.EDU>

Subject: Re: Mondegreens



Tom Clark writes:



>Uh, Larry, There is a BOOK of such "aural/oral-spelling" gaffes named

>_Pullet Surprise_



in reference to my mentioning of the term that I first



>>[came] across it in Fromkin & Rodman, who cite an eponymous compilation.







I know--that's what I had intended to refer to with the reference to an

eponymous compilation (sorry for not having been more specific, but 'eponymous'

seemed too pompous and formal to follow it with just plain 'book'). I didn't

have my Fromkin & Rodman on me at home, but now I can tell anyone interested

that the book is called "Pullet Surprises" and it was written (or compiled) by

Amsel Greene (Glenview, Ill: Scott,Foresman, 1969). (There may be follow-ups

of the usual sort--More Pullet Surprises, Still More... I can't check because

they're evidently not scholarly enough for the Yale library, whose on-line

catalog doesn't list Pullet or Amsel Greene.)

  As for the pun, I'm in Wayne's dialect and not in Bethany's; I've always

pronounced the prize as   "PULLitzer", but now that you mention it, I've

heard it pronounced both ways. I don't know how Joseph & family did so.



Larry