"Something there is that doesn=?windows-1252?Q?=92t_?=love retroactivity."

[Neal Whitman]

It's an allusion to the Robert Frost poem about walls, I assumed, and in
the poem I figure Frost did it for metrical reasons. As for correctness,
I take it to be a topicalization ("Something that doesn't love a wall,
there is") combined with heavy NP shift. So technically correct, but
awkward.

Neal

On 1/6/2014 10:45 AM, Dan Goncharoff wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Dan Goncharoff <thegonch at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      =?windows-1252?Q?=22Something_there_is_that_doesn=92t_love_retroa
>                ctivit?= =?windows-1252?Q?y=2E=22?=
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I saw this today in the NYTimes:
> http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/06/opinion/greenhouse-crack-cocaine-limbo.html
>
> It feels wrong to me, but I can't put my finger on it. Is it technically
> correct, but too Yoda-like? Help, please.
>
> DanG
>
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