feeble position

Joel S. Berson Berson at ATT.NET
Sun Aug 16 22:02:29 UTC 2009


Apropos David Daniel's comment, I'd like to know what the difference
is between "feeble position" (an accepted eggcorm) and "foreboding
descent" (pooh-poohed).

Joel

At 8/16/2009 05:32 PM, Chris Waigl wrote:
>On 4 Aug 2009, at 17:51, Arnold Zwicky wrote:
>
>>On Aug 2, 2009, at 11:03 AM, Michael Covarrubias wrote:
>>
>>>watching an old episode of _coach_ ... i thought i heard
>>>luther (jerry van dyke) utter the following line:
>>>
>>>"i dropped on my knees, curled up in the feeble position, closed my
>>>eyes and screamed my head off"
>>>
>>>on repeated viewing it seems i heard him right.
>>>
>>>
>>>side note: skateboarders apparently use this to refer to a position
>>>of
>>>the board perched on the edge of a ramp. at least that's what this
>>>video seems to indicate...
>>
>>there are also some relevant non-skateboarding examples, with people
>>curling up into the feeble position and the like.
>>
>>lovely eggcorn, with "feeble" suggesting helplessness and the like.
>
>
>Now in the ECDB, with a reference to this thread and Michael
>Covarrubias: http://eggcorns.lascribe.net/english/1102/feeble/
>
>Chris Waigl
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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



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