A pedantic correction (but it's still a good story)

[Allen W Thrasher]

Thanks, Paul.  I'm virtually certain I heard it as Polish, which as I was explaining to Bob Goldman, made the story even better.  Maybe it got transformed before it got to me, rather than by me.

Allen

>>> Paul Kiparsky <kiparsky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU> 3/5/2009 6:35 PM >>>

>
> There was another one I heard about Roman Jacobson.  When he first  
> came to the U.S., his English was insufficient for lecturing, so in  
> his first class he said, "Does everyone here know Polish?"  One shy  
> student at the back timidly raised her hand saying she didn't.  He  
> leaned over the podium, spread out his hands, and said, "Vell, TRY."
>
> Si non e vero, e bien trovato.
>

It was my father, Valentin Kiparsky, not Roman Jakobson.  The  
occasion was the 1952 Linguistic Institute at Bloomington, Indiana.   
The language was Russian, not Polish.  And the student was male.

...ben cambiato, anyway.

Paul