"advocate for"

[Jonathan Lighter]

Something like, "Now she's campaigning for world hunger"?

JL

On Fri, Sep 18, 2009 at 1:06 PM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> Subject:      Re: "advocate for"
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>
> At 9/18/2009 09:28 AM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
> >Inglish synonym for "campaigner against."  This has been around for years,
> >of course, but this ex. seems especially egregious:
> >
> >2009 Lauren Collins in _New Yorker_ (Sept. 21) 38: "Anyway, I got up,
> >because I had to, and once I got on the airplane I collapsed."...[Cindy]
> >McCain has decided to become an advocate for the disorder.
>
> Unless McCain is really advocating for additional disorders caused by
> people collapsing on airplanes?
>
> Didn't I write something once here about similar cases, of writers
> saying "for" something that was the undesirable alternative?  Can't
> remember more than that.
>
> Joel
>
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