"Reverse" replaces "override"

Wilson Gray hwgray at GMAIL.COM
Fri Aug 23 20:48:10 UTC 2013


On Fri, Aug 23, 2013 at 1:52 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>wrote:

> he difference between this 8-letter verb and the 9 letters it would have
> taken for "Overrides" was crucial.


Yes. I tried to take that into consideration, too. And there's also <sigh!>
the *age* factor. I've come to understand that a lot of my peeves are due
to the fact that I pretty much locked up my grammar and threw away the key
after I took my final high-school English final, ca. May Day, 1954. But,
English itself hasn't done that. I've even come to realize that the various
fuckings-up - as opposed to wrong-headed attempts at imitation - of black
speech by white speakers are likewise language-change in progress and not
gross tokens of disrespect 'cause y'all just don't give a shit about the
*real* soul-meanings.

OTOH, I've never ceased ro enjoy a good, race-based joke, such as the
parody of Winnie the Poo in which is heard the expression,

"Tigguh, *please*!"

Good one! I/It cracked my ass *up*, when I heard that! :-)

--
-Wilson
-----
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-Mark Twain

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



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