[Ads-l] desirous

Neal Whitman nwhitman at AMERITECH.NET
Fri Dec 12 16:26:43 UTC 2014


I heard a similar semantic shift, attributable to poetic license, in a 
"morning zoo" parody song on the radio in Houston, Texas, 1985. It was 
during flu season, and to the tune of "Elvira," someone sang:

     Flu virus
     Flu virus
     It uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuun-desirous,
     Flu virus.

Neal

On 12/12/2014 9:05 AM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      desirous
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> 'Tempting':
>
>
> Annie Daly at Yahoo! Health:
>
> "Adding resistance exercises to your workout routine may make fatty foods
> less desirous."
>
>   Classic Inglish.
>
> JL
>

-- 
Dr. Neal Whitman
Lecturer, ESL Composition
School of Teaching and Learning
College of Education and Human Ecology
Arps Hall
1945 North High Street
whitman.11 at osu.edu
(614) 260-1622


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