Re: Of flowers and aspersions (seen on aus.dvd)

From: Jacques Guy (jguy_at_alphalink.com.au)
Date: 03/30/05 

Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 12:24:59 +1000

John Atkinson wrote:
> "To cast an aspersion
> on" is, indeed, a familiar phrase. In my family, we used the
> "nasturtium" form when I was young. If I'd bothered to think about it,
> I'd probably have thought it unique to our familiolect (I never heard
> anyone else use it), probably invented by our grandmother (it was the
> sort of thing she'd do). Apparently not.

Curiouser and curiouser. It looks like a jocular mispronunciation
has become common enough. It does not seem to be limited to
Australia. A world-wide google search returns 357 hits. Limited
to Australia, 14 hits.