microwave (was: Query to ADS)

[Mark A. Mandel]

Beverly Flanigan <flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU> writes:

>>>>>
A friend of mine is teaching a course for elem.-jr. hi English/Language
Arts teachers this Winter on "The Development of American
English."  Wolfram & Schilling-Estes is too long and technical for this
course.  Does anyone have a good recommendation for a course that meets
twice a week for 10 weeks (and will be taught largely by microwave?!).
<<<<<

An indication of semantic shift (or what to call it?): My first reaction to
this was to the thought of a course taught largely by microwave *oven*:
"How in the heck do they do *THAT*?!"

While I theoretically deprecate this kind of truncation (how many people in
the sixties thought that "transistor" meant a small portable radio?),
microwave ovens are common enough in my life and language, and microwaves
themselves (i.e., electromagnetic waves of wavelength 1mm-1m) rare enough,
that like most Americans I use the single word for the appliance.

-- Mark
Imprimis: Pro nugis noli sudare.
Secundus: Omnia sunt nugae.