Measuring the Drapes

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On Thu, Oct 23, 2008 at 10:57 AM, Benjamin Zimmer
<bgzimmer at babel.ling.upenn.edu> wrote:
>
> On Thu, Oct 23, 2008 at 10:17 AM, Benjamin Zimmer
> <bgzimmer at babel.ling.upenn.edu> wrote:
> >
> > On Thu, Oct 23, 2008 at 9:30 AM, Baker, John <JMB at stradley.com> wrote:
> >>
> >>        The Washington Post today has an article on political references
> >> to presidential candidates measuring the drapes for the White House as a
> >> way to criticize overconfidence,
> >> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/22/AR200810
> >> 2203446.html.  The Post takes it back to 1980.  Can we do better?
> >
> > Shows up earlier with "curtains".
[snip examples]

Now greatly expanded on Language Log:

http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=763

Picked up by The Caucus, the New York Times political blog, citing
both ADS-L and LL:

--Ben Zimmer

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