Salomi and prosciuth

[Lassie, her friend Jeff, and an enemy. From the Lassie episode “The Dognappers” (December 3, 1961). Click either image for a larger view.]

I like to watch Lassie when I fold laundry. I’m not ashamed.

But I had to stop folding and hit Pause when I saw that window. I thought I knew what was up, and the wider view clinched it.

The show’s writers might be having a joke, or trying to have a joke, on Italian-American prounciation, though no one would change the /a/ sound of salami to an /o/ or spell the word with an o. And in Italian-American Italian, prosciutto is properly pronounced /pro-SHOOT/. If the writers aren’t joking about pronunciation, the odd-looking prosciuth might a joke on the improbability of an Italian grocery store in Calverton. Or maybe the writers just didn’t get it right.

The food names in the other window might help sort out these possibilities, but the signage is just too blurry, at least for me. I enlarged, experimented with contrast and resolution — just too blurry.

*

An astute reader sees copicoli and provoloni in the other window, and suggests that the propmaster was having a joke. The propmaster for this and 283 more Lassie episodes: Mariano Tomasino. He must have been having a joke.

Related posts
All OCA Lassie posts : Bafangool! : Capeesh? : New Jersey Italian : Parlando italiano a Brooklyn

And a 2004 New York Times article has more about Italian-American Italian.