"Above approach"

[Joel S. Berson]

I agree that many instances seem "malaprops", but Kathleen Clark's
sounded intentional to me.  Perhaps someone can ask her.

Joel

At 5/30/2006 10:46 AM, you wrote:
>At 10:11 AM -0400 5/30/06, Joel S. Berson wrote:
>>Why the half-way appreciation?  I would be pleased to have invented this.
>>
>>Joel
>
>It's been independently invented a few times, it would appear.  There
>are 44 raw google web hits for "is above approach" (that eliminates
>irrelevantia like "on the above approach"), in contexts like
>
>No political or religious institution is safe, no sovereign entity is
>above approach
>
>If you are AMD, Google, Apple, Mozilla then everything you do is
>above approach.
>
>His work ethic is above approach
>
>Other things that are claimed to be above approach are the piety of
>the albino monk in "The Da Vinci Code", someone's operating practice,
>someone else's honor and integrity, Justice Alito's ethics, and so
>on.  Seems like a pretty unintentional substitution to me, what we
>used to call malaprops in our benighted prescriptive days...
>
>LH
>
>>
>>At 5/30/2006 08:16 AM, you wrote:
>>>In this morning's St. Louis Post-Dispatch, there's an AP story on Sen.
>>>Harry Reid, who accepted a questionable gift from the Nevada Athletic
>>>Commission. Kathleen Clark, an expert on congressional ethics at
>>>Washington University in St. Louis, is quoted as saying, "I think he
>>>would want to be above approach even when it's from a state
>>>commission and not a private lobbyist."
>>>
>>>If it's a deliberate coinage - above being approached? - it strikes me as
>>>halfway clever, but there's a definite eggcornish flavor to it.
>>>
>>>Jim Parish
>>>
>>>------------------------------------------------------------
>>>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>
>>------------------------------------------------------------
>>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org