"Cheap plow" = "cheap shot, low blow"?

Benjamin Zimmer bgzimmer at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU
Fri Aug 8 22:01:11 UTC 2008


On Fri, Aug 8, 2008 at 5:58 PM, Benjamin Zimmer <bgzimmer at ling.upenn.edu> wrote:
> On Fri, Aug 8, 2008 at 5:29 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> From the NYT Online:
>>
>> "It seems a _cheap plow_ of the NY Times to 'generate points' in a
>> story by including only some of the facts."
>>
>> http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/08/07/is-apple-iphone-ready-for-business-sort-of-says-gartner/?nl=tech&emc=tech
>>
>> The comment was made by a reader who signed himself as being from
>> "NC." Unfortunately, he could be from NC only to the extent that I'm
>> from MA.
>>
>> Not in DARE.
>
> I'm guessing it's a typo for "cheap ploy".

Or maybe a text-o, since "plow" and "ploy" are textonyms...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predictive_text#Textonyms


--Ben Zimmer

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