ok, Heather called me on my hyperbole. Boll (the o is actually swallowed) is a good example, as is et, thar, ma, & pa.

and, of course, to speak of a "southern" accent as if there was one incarnation of such a thing is possibly the most ridiculous thing ever. EVER! There are a good 4 distinctive accents just within Texas.

I AM APPALLED that Britney stole it.

I'm sad that she had a boy. I had money on the baby name being "L'Oreal Diamond."

I shared an apartment with a native of Augusta, GA, a central North Carolinian, an Atlantan and one from Nashville.

They'd play duelling accents. And I ended up sounding like all of them mashed together for that semester.

That's another good one- my cousin, educated with a doctorate still says far for fire and mira for mirror. Mine's not nearly that thick, I have certain words that pinpoint where I'm from (boll, and other oi words, Loosiana, yestaday, and Chals) but other than that my English is pretty standard if slightly southern.

But McClellan says Bush intends to stress the "unprecedented'' nature of the hurricane that struck two weeks ago

Apart from, say, Galveston, the Labor Day Hurricane, Camille, and Hugo, then?

Thanks. Just checking.

Puppies and Tigers!

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Apart from, say, Galveston, the Labor Day Hurricane, Camille, and Hugo, then?

Rain! Falling from the sky! How could anyone have predicted that?

Loosiana

I lost a geography bee because of this. The guy (from Louisiana) I was up against finished the word first because he dropped a syllable. I was so righteously indignant! (I was also 9.)

mira for mirror

Thanks dw, Ginger, and Tom.

I had a reference question in grad school like this. It was "How far down the alphabet has the National Weather Service gotten, and what was the name and year of that storm?"

Yeah. He's in fourth grade, though. We ened up using the wiki page TomW provided as reference, because the paper only had a one line answer space.

All those names have been used multiple times. Gert-2005 wasn't a hurricane, so the teacher must mean one of the earlier Gerts, such as Gert-1999.

Ben already knew that names are sometimes reused, and only retired when they've been attached to a memorable storm. He said we should just look at the 2005 storms, despite the fact that there are almost no directions on the hw sheet. He thinks she decided to do a hurricane unit because of Katrina. But I know (and he knows, too) what you mean. Our inner pedantry was also piqued, because not all three were hurricanes.

I don't know what Britney was thinking. Preston Msbelle sounds so much better than Preston Spears Federline.

What if that middle one isn't a name, but rather--a verb?

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Delta and NWA filed for Bankruptcy!