"IB - what if Don tells you to put your hand in the fire?"

David, both Mr. Beard and I are guilty of telling you the truth and I guess you just aren't up to handling it. Your indulging in this kind of snotty remark pretty well indicates that you are on political, cultural, and ethnomusicological thin ice and you know it.

". . . and do you think Japanese people would also laugh?"

I think so. A good friend of mine when I was in college, John Matsumoto (American-born of Japanese ancestry and, of course, spoke accentless American English), told a couple of Japanese dialect jokes that were hilarious. Some of the best renditions of Jewish dialect jokes I have ever heard were told to me by people of the Jewish persuasion. I imagine that there are a few who might be offended, but these would be people who are hypersensitive pure-culture freaks whose perspective of the world is limited (no matter how extensively they may have traveled) and whose sense of humor had been amputated.

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Speaking of penny-whistles, I have a whole quiver-full in various keys. I have never looked into the history of the penny-whistle and where it originated. That doesn't seem particularly important to me; what is important is that one can play music with them. But I do associated them with the British Isles, because it was on recordings of music from the British Isles that I first heard one.

It is not important to me to label the penny-whistle with a country of origin, such as "Irish penny-whistle" or "English penny-whistle." It's just not that important.

I've messed around with them from time to time, but I don't really know how to play them. So I most certainly would not post my fumbling attempts on MySpace and inflict my inept squawks and fweeps on poor, unsuspecting web surfers. I am a humanitarian, after all (even if I don't have a BA in Humanities).

Some years ago, I walked into a music store and asked the clerk if he had any penny-whistles. He did have them. Generation brand (officially a "flageolet"). In addition to various pitches, Generation makes them in both brass and nickel-plate. The nickel-plated ones cost a bit more. I was not aware of this at the time.

He answered my question by saying, "Yes, but all I have are the nickel ones."

The answer had me completely flummoxed. I thought about it for a moment, then asked him, "Do you have any for a dime?" Then it was his turn to be flummoxed.

Suddenly we both realized the miscommunication and burst out laughing.

We drew a few quizzical glances from other customers in the store.

Don Firth

(For those who may not be familiar with American coinage:    Penny = coin of lowest value.   Nickel = worth five pennies.   Dime = worth ten pennies. As I recall, the actually price of the nickel-plated penny-whistle was about $4.95 plus sales tax.)