emacs-lisp-mode and abbrev table

[Harry Putnam]

Running recent  emacs from cvs 
GNU Emacs 23.0.94.1 (i486-pc-linux-gnu) of 2009-06-10 on reader
 
Posted here in case this problem I'm having is 23.X related.

I can't make an abbrev work in emacs-lisp-mode for some reason.

There are no errors when I commit them with `Ctrl-c Ctrl-c'

But when i return to ~/.emacs... the abbrevs don't work.
closing emacs and restarting it doesn't help either... and I see no
message about saving abbrevs when I close emacs.

Here's an example from abbrevs table:

  (emacs-lisp-mode-abbrev-table)

  "smt"          0    "something"


But it doesn't work in ~/.emacs

With .emacs open  eval: major-mode  shows emacs-lisp-mode