Discussion Groups / English Usage / May 2009

Slightly. It is a reference to a pronunciation in which the initial 'A'
is (almost) silent.

From the OED:

   Merkin, n.2

   Chiefly U.S. slang.    
   [Alteration of AMERICAN n. (probably after U.S. pronunciation),
   perhaps partly punningly after MERKIN n.1
     For earlier evidence for an aphetic spoken form of AMERICAN adj.
     compare the following:
     1872 J. FORSTER Life Dickens I. 333 The ‘Merrikin’ government have
     treated him, he says, most liberally and handsomely in every
     respect.]
   
   An American. Also: American English.

   1990 Re: Interesting Idioms in rec.sport.soccer (Usenet newsgroup) 1
   Feb., Well, not always. Andy Roxburgh is Scotlands coach, we have no
   manager the noo. What's 'merkin for ‘booked’, or alternatively,
   ‘Right, son{em}walk!’

   1992 Re: RFD: sci.cryonics in news.groups (Usenet newsgroup) 27 May,
   To me, cryonics means fridges etc (sorry ‘refrigerators’ to you
   'merkins).

   1993 Star Tribune (Minneapolis) 26 Sept. 24A, Computer software [in
   Portugal] is in ‘Merkin’ (American English), and so are a lot of the
   courses at the Institute of Technology at the University of Lisboa.

   1994 Morning Call (Allentown, Pa.) 21 Aug. B3 Black related an
   anecdote about touring the South back in the 1960s when his group
   [sc. Jay and the Americans] was referred to as ‘Jay and the
   Merkins’.

   1994 W. SAFIRE in N.Y. Times Mag. 11 Sept. 45/1 Americans have
**  seized on this Britishism, which has become the most important
   contribution of the mother country to the lingo we call Merkin since
   "not to worry" and "spot on".

   1999 Sun-Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale, Florida) (Nexis) 14 May 15 L.A.
   is only marginally American. It's a modern-day Babel, where it's the
   ‘real merkins’ who must feel linguistically and culturally
   alienated.

** The Britishism Safire refers to is "the chattering classes":
http://tinyurl.com/o87dnt

It's his nod to LBJ.

aMURaca (only secondarily "aMURca") is the real way people say it, in my
experience.  Well, my experience is gained from a number of comic
examples in cartoons and movies of politicians.  Some of them are
"Suthun", of course, but not all.  I wonder if the gentlemen speakers (I
haven't heard any female political hacks being so portrayed) of the
patriotic name are just finishing chewing on a rib or a turkey leg, or
are afraid they are about to belch. They do seem to hem and haw
resoundingly.  But maybe they are just testing the sound system.