Embarrassingly Enough, ...

Jonathan Lighter wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM
Fri May 4 13:33:40 UTC 2007


SOTA.

JL

Benjamin Barrett <gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM> wrote: ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender:       American Dialect Society
Poster:       Benjamin Barrett
Subject:      Re: Embarrassingly Enough, ...
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This doesn't strike me as particularly odd, though when closely
scrutinized, it seems ungrammatical.

Is there a difference between "to be embarrassed of (noun)" and
something like "he's embarrassed of who he is" and "she's embarrassed of
her mother"? Other than whether the following phrase is non-sentient or
sentient phrase, I can't see one.

Benjamin Barrett
a cyberbreath for language life
livinglanguages.wordpress.com

Doug Harris wrote:
> I find this usage odd as well as unusual:
> A sign seen this evening near Scranton PA, advertising
> a company that does something to/for bathrooms:
>
> "[Are You] Embarrassed of Your Bathroom?"
> --
> Of?
> 'Coulda been poetic license, I guess, though I think
> they could have fit three more letters on the sign so
> as to suggest embarrassment ~about~ one's bathroom.
> (the other) doug

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