To 86

[Lynne Murphy]

--On Thursday, February 8, 2001 12:52 am -0500 "Philip E. Cleary"
<pcleary at WANS.NET> wrote:

> The following paragraph is from a CNET newsletter, which I received
> yesterday.
>
> <We loved it, you hated it, we rethought it. That's right, in our
> first take on Netscape 6, we generally gave the new browser the
> thumbs up. But readers overwhelmingly 86'd the program. >
>
> Can anyone translate the verb "to 86" into English?


Well, it should mean 'to throw out' (see 'eighty-six' in a dictionary), but
this sounds like they mean 'to dis'.

Lynne


M Lynne Murphy
Lecturer in Linguistics
School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

phone +44-(0)1273-678844
fax   +44-(0)1273-671320