Gianfranco wrote, in response to Doug Franklin's post:
> Hi Doug,
> I'm not sure I understand what does "furriners" mean.
> Could you please explain?
Hi Gianfranco,
"Furriners" means "foreigners". The "Willy" and "Joe" characters in the
strip were likely representations of rural American country folk from
somewhere deep in America's heartland, who had probably never seen any
"furriners" in their lives, much less been to a foreign country. In fact,
"Willy" and "Joe" might not even pronounce the word "foreigner" correctly;
thus, the phonetic representation "furriner". (If you've ever read some of
American novelist Mark Twain's work -- "Huckleberry Finn" or "Tom Sawyer" --
you have a flavor for this type of character.) This is the cartoonist's
light-hearted attempt, I think, to poke some fun at how we Americans were in
many respects culturally isolated from the rest of the world. Not ~all~
Americans, but certainly many of the young boys who came from throughout a
rural America, mired in an economic depression, in order to fight (and
sometimes to die) on foreign soil in faraway places.
Hope this helps.
Bill Peifer
Rochester, NY
P.S. -- And by the way, those of you who pointed this out are absolutely
correct. In one of my posts yesterday, I said "farthings" when I should
have said "furlongs". Sheesh, talk about cultural isolation! :-)
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