Collegiate "geek" in the '70s (was Re: Synonymy avoidance)

[Laurence Horn]

At 11:08 AM -0500 3/14/05, David Bowie wrote:
>From:    Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM>
>
>>When my wife did botanical research in the '60s, she was instructed
>  > that the stuff that grows plants must always be called "soil."  This
>>  was not to impress customers.  It was because "dirt" has the salient
>>  undesirable meaning of "filth." ("Soil" and "filth" are also related,
>>  but the connection does not come to mind as readily.)
>
>>Because of its greater specificity, "soil" became a required technical
>  > term.
>
>>Idiomatically, one may live "close to the soil," but not to the "dirt."
>
>Consider, though, that one can find T-shirts and such in gardening
>catalogs emblazoned with the statement "Plays in the dirt". I don't
>think this is an ironic usage--gardeners don't seem to be an ironic lot
>in my experience, speaking generally--though it may be a
>(semi-?)conscious co-opting of a negative term to express something
>positive (in this case, that gardening is fun).
>
And "dirt" used to be a lot *more* negative; even the "filth" sense
is a narrowing/amelioration from the original drecative meaning.
(See OED, sense 1.)

Larry