"war with words" aka "paper war"?

[Jonathan Lighter]

OED has "war of words" lexicalized since 1725.

Google Books has "war with words" (as a synonym rather than a chance
collocation) only very, very rarely.

JL


On Tue, Feb 4, 2014 at 9:38 AM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: "war with words" aka "paper war"?
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> It may mean nothing, but Google Books Ngram Viewer reveals that "mofo" hit
> huge peaks around 1800, 1840, and 1920. And "goofy" had a minor peak around
> 1800 as well.
>
> JL
>
>
> On Tue, Feb 4, 2014 at 8:53 AM, Amy West <medievalist at w-sts.com> wrote:
>
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> > -----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       Amy West <medievalist at W-STS.COM>
> > Subject:      Re: "war with words" aka "paper war"?
> >
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > On 2/4/14 12:00 AM, Automatic digest processor wrote:
> > > Date:    Mon, 3 Feb 2014 09:38:36 -0500
> > > From:    Jonathan Lighter<wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> > > Subject: Re: "war with words" aka "paper war"?
> > >
> > > What makes it noteworthy is that the established idiom has apparently
> > > become opaque to some people who are educated enough to write news copy
> > for
> > > a giant corporation.
> > >
> > > What's more, had the writer been familiar with "war of words," he'd
> > > certainly have used it to avoid having two "withs" in the space of
> three
> > > words.
> > >
> > > JL
> > Not necessarily. The choice of that first "with" may have been
> > influenced by thinking ahead to that second "with." To Google Ngrams,
> > Lightman?
> >
> > ---Amy West
> >
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"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

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