semantic drift: "swath"

[Jonathan Lighter]

A metaphoric extension in this case results in new. or at least unrecorded,  meaning. A "huge swath" of resources does not seem to me to be much like either an agricultural swath or the swath one may metaphorically cuts in social situations.

  JL

"Baker, John" <JMB at STRADLEY.COM> wrote:
  ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: "Baker, John"
Subject: Re: semantic drift: "swath"
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Is this semantic drift or just metaphoric extension? It sounds
fine to me, though not in any literal sense, of course. I think we may
actually have used "swath" in this metaphoric sense when I was a farm
boy, though of course we weren't talking about Hollywood resources or
soul-searching films.


John Baker


-----Original Message-----
From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf
Of Jonathan Lighter
Sent: Saturday, February 23, 2008 6:38 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: semantic drift: "swath"

"(Large) amount." Not in OED.

1998 Mitch Potter in _Toronto Star_ (Aug. 8) K1 [Lexis/Nexis]:
Hollywood did, of course, dedicate a huge swath of resources to an
endless parade of soul-searching films on Vietnam.

JL


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