Jailbreak, v.

Wilson Gray hwgray at GMAIL.COM
Mon Aug 11 17:31:21 UTC 2008


I have to go along with Grant, Dave, even though he did kill-joy my
original post. Oh, well. A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do, I
suppose. :-(

-Wilson

On Mon, Aug 11, 2008 at 11:36 AM, Grant Barrett
<gbarrett at worldnewyork.org> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Grant Barrett <gbarrett at WORLDNEWYORK.ORG>
> Subject:      Re: Jailbreak, v.
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Aug 11, 2008, at 11:24, Dave Wilton wrote:
>
>> I don't see how this is iPhone related, other than from the iPhone
>> jailbreak
>> being "in the air."
>>
>> Rather, it seems to me to be a metaphorical extension of the old
>> "information wants to be free" meme, which actually appears in the
>> quoted
>> portion of the article. You don't need the iPhone to make this
>> connection.
>
> Perhaps, but my understanding of the iPhone use of "jailbreak" is that
> it is itself extended from the "information wants to be free" meme,
> and, further, I find the timing of this usage to be significant,
> especially considering that I have not seen any other such uses of
> "jail break" n. in my word-hunting (though, of course, I am only one
> person and could miss them all without knowing it).
>
> Grant Barrett
> gbarrett at worldnewyork.org
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



--
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-----
 -Sam'l Clemens

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



More information about the Ads-l mailing list