Good grammar vs. good taste revisited?

Laurence Horn laurence.horn at YALE.EDU
Sat Sep 24 14:23:15 UTC 2011


On Sep 23, 2011, at 9:30 PM, Spanbock/Svoboda-Spanbock wrote:

> I'm liking googla = plural of google? (I'm always the last to hear.)


I've been using "googlum" and "googla" for a while, but I don't know anyone else who does.  So be prepared for puzzled looks.  Since "google" is already taken for both the noun (denoting the search engine, technically with upper case) and the verb, as well as the "nounjective" in compounds, I figure it would help to have a separate noun for result(s) returned by a google search, whence googlum (sg.)/googla (pl.)

LH

>
> On Sep 23, 2011, at 4:43 PM, Laurence Horn wrote:
>
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> -----------------------
>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
>> Subject:      Good grammar vs. good taste revisited?
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> A currently airing commercial for Mercedes introducing its new line
>> of cars, the [two-door] 2012 C Coupe, boasts that it has:
>>
>> More Power
>> More Style
>> More Technology
>> Less Doors
>>
>> Let's see if it's a print ad too
>>
>>
>> Not that I can see, but lots of (predictable) complaining googla to
>> the effect that it "should" be "fewer doors".  I assume the "Less
>> doors" was entirely intentional and harks back to Miller Lite's
>> "Less filling"/"More taste" commercials as well as the general
>> tendency for "less" to be the antonym of "more" in most contexts.
>> And that we were supposed to notice.  It's not like a supermarket's
>> "10 items or less" aisle, which is likely unintentional.
>>
>> LH
>>
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>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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