Word Play

I 'm a volunteer editor for the Forvo site. People will sometimes complain about a given pronunciation -- it's hard to hear, or it's not done by a native speaker -- that sort of thing. I listen to it, and if the pronunciation's faulty, I delete it; if the complaint's not valid, I delete that.

This morning I received a complaint that the phrase "Pass Christian" was mispronounced by one person. I listened to it. The speaker had a strong, confident voice with an American accent, and the phrase -- which I took, initially, to be some kind of Biblical reference -- sounded fine. Then I looked at the tags for the word:

Defined tags: North American city common pronunciation, cities in North America using the common English pronunciation, Mississippi, towns in Mississippi, United States, shibboleth

and thought ooohhhh -- it's not a Biblical phrase at all -- they mean that city in southern Mississippi! Which I happen to know because I'd attended an Air Force technical school in Biloxi, which is in southern Mississippi. Almost on the Gulf, in fact. From which residency I know that down there, they pronounce it Pass Chris-tee-YAN-- almost with a French accent. It's an easy - to - understand mistake. Yeah, that pronunciation's not right.

Then I looked at the tags again, and in particular the last one, and thought A Linguist's Joke?