Pontius "Pie Late"; prolific

[Jonathan Lighter]

More likely he belongs to an Irish organization working to protect the major waterway that flows through Dublin.  The spokesman was sophisticated enough to include the now somewhat old-fashioned "-ic" suffix.

  I didn't catch the entire story, but if the above explanation is rejected, my second hunch is that the spokesman meant something like "resourceful." Jesse may be correct; but why not just say "a career criminal" ? (Oh...right !)

  The "perp" is a bank-robber.

  JL

Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU> wrote:
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Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Laurence Horn
Subject: Re: Pontius "Pie Late"; prolific
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At 1:12 PM -0400 4/6/07, Jesse Sheidlower wrote:
>On Fri, Apr 06, 2007 at 10:07:20AM -0700, Arnold M. Zwicky wrote:
>> On Apr 6, 2007, at 5:20 AM, Jon Lighter wrote:
>>
>> >... On the same show, an FBI spokesman explained that the fugitive
>> >from yesterday's New Jersey shooting is "prolific and dangerous."
>> >Wha ? He's likely to have more criminal kids before he's caught ?
>>
>> malaprops (of all types) tend to induce bewilderment in me. what was
>> the right target word here?
>
>I don't think this is a malapropism, just an extended use. If
>prolific authors write a lot of books, so too must prolific
>criminals commit a lot of crimes. (Or whatever; I don't know
>about the criminal in question, but I'm better that he does a
>lot of something.)
>
Or perhaps his principal target was abortion providers (he wouldn't
be the first), and the FBI spokesman figured "pro(-)lific" was the
appropriate adjective...

LH

P.S. Arggh--luckily I checked my mailer before sending this off, so
now after seeing that Charlie beat me to the punch (coyses, Doyled
again!!) I send it off as an illustration of GMTingA.

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