a small plea

[Cohen, Gerald Leonard]

The biggest mistake our organization could make would be to limit the range of discussion. The contributions that scholars like Fred Shapiro, Barry Popik, Douglas Wilson, Sam Clements, John Baker and others have made are considerable.  The topics in _American Speech_ and the works of Allen Walker Read (honored repeatedly, and with good reason, by the American Dialect Society) go beyond language variation. 
    For those not interested in certain topics, the delete key does work. And a bit of weariness in the finger is a small price to pay for the great wealth of information that comes down the pike in the ads-l messages.
I, for one, find this variety an invaluable asset in my research.
 
Al;l good wishes.
Gerald Cohen
 
P.S. Lois Nathan's question is a reasonable one. I'm off to class now but will send an answer this evening (unless Barry beats me to it).

	-----Original Message----- 
	From: American Dialect Society on behalf of Dennis R. Preston 
	Sent: Thu 10/30/2003 5:45 AM 
	To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU 
	Cc: 
	Subject: Re: a small plea
	
	

	In the interests of the rather more general purposes of this list,
	having to do with language variation in the Americas and not almost
	exclusively the half-second antedating of a word or phrase or the
	bashing of those who have not seen the most recent thoughts on such,
	could this be answered privately. I know it's easy to delete, but my
	delete finger is growing weary.
	
	Hopefully,
	
	dInIs
	
	
	
	Hi sports fans, food word searchers and all interested parties,
	     www.bluemountain.com the other day was running a pop-up quiz where they
	ask you to guess the term for "hot dog" in 1905.  They claim it was "dachshund
	sausage", popularized by sportswriter Tad Dorgan.  Is this true?
	
	Lois Nathan
	
	--
	Dennis R. Preston
	University Distinguished Professor
	Department of Linguistics & Germanic, Slavic,
	      Asian & African Languages
	Michigan State University
	East Lansing, MI 48824-1027
	e-mail: preston at msu.edu
	phone: (517) 432-3099