Usage of 'Nexis' is Baffling

Wilson Gray hwgray at GMAIL.COM
Sun Apr 8 06:26:45 UTC 2007


It also could be the case that the writer did use "nexus," but had it
"corrected" to "nexis" by some semi-literate editor more familiar with
"Nexis" than with the English lexicon.

-Wilson

On 4/7/07, Arnold M. Zwicky <zwicky at csli.stanford.edu> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Arnold M. Zwicky" <zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: Usage of 'Nexis' is Baffling
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Apr 7, 2007, at 7:50 AM, Doug Harris wrote:
>
> > Does anyone understand what the author of this letter, published in
> > today
> > Sacramento Bee, meant in her use of the word 'nexis'?....
> >
> > What's fascinating to me on this issue and so many others involving
> > the
> > safety and security of California families is that there doesn't
> > appear to
> > be any nexis between these tragic deaths and families destroyed and
> > the
> > voting patterns in every election.
>
> i'd say that the word she was aiming for was "nexus", intending it as
> a fancy substitute for "connection".
>
> arnold
>
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-----
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