Roil/Rile NY Times usage question

Alan Baragona abaragona at SPRYNET.COM
Wed Mar 2 03:33:22 UTC 2005


FW: NY Times usage questionThis, from a 35 year veteran of the New York Times, supports the speculation that the Times considers "roil" and "rile" lexically separate.

Alan Baragona 

______________________________________________ 
From:   Ayres, Drummond  
Sent:   Tuesday, March 01, 2005 7:56 AM 
To:     Baragona, Alan 
Subject:        RE: NY Times usage question 

People get riled; waters get roiled --- more or less .... Most of the time, at least when i was at the Times, Webster's 3rd was the Bible -- and since Webster had moved on to another edition/s, the copies of the 3rd that were on the research desks were mighty fragile ... physically, that is .... and over time, other dictionaries began to show up on the desks also ... and the Times became a little more looseygoosey on such matters ... but essentially the editors (there are a couple who are the assigned specialists in such matters -- Alan Siegal in particular) preferred the 3rd -- at least while i was there ...i've got a copy of the 3rd at home in NYC ... will check it on the next NYC jaunt ... I take it the search you folks did of the times past showed people getting riled and waters getting roiled???



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