"Dead man's float" (and not in OED)

[Laurence Horn]

On Jun 1, 2014, at 7:01 PM, Dan Goncharoff wrote:

> I am curious about the [sic] --- how would you write the possessive of
> Boston Sports Clubs?
>
> DanG

How many Boston Sports Clubs are there?

As for the DMF, I remember being taught it in...must have been the early 1950s but, no doubt from too much water on the brain, I have totally forgotten what posture or angle was involved.

LH
>
>
> On Sun, Jun 1, 2014 at 6:08 PM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:
>
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> -----------------------
>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
>> Subject:      "Dead man's float" (and not in OED)
>>
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> In "Tales From the City" in today's Boston Globe magazine section, a
>> Newton resident writes that "at the Boston Sports Clubs' [sic]
>> Watertown location" he overheard an "exchange between a swimming
>> instructor and a boy of 5 or 6."
>> "Instructor: 'You've just learned the dead man's float. What's great
>> about that?'
>> "Boy: 'I don't know.'
>> "Instructor: 'Well, if you get into difficulties, you're on your back
>> and can breathe easily. You can then just float to the side of the
>> pool or call for help.'
>> "Boy: 'What if I don't have a cellphone?'
>>
>> The joke may be funny, but the swimming instructor's instructions are
>> not.  In the dead man's float I was taught, one floats vertically,
>> face immersed with just the top of the head out of water, raising the
>> head periodically to breathe.  See
>> http://www.ehow.com/how_6582_survival-float.html (AKA the jellyfish
>> or dead man's float).  That provides more buoyancy than floating on
>> one's back, important for people whose density approaches that of water.
>>
>> P.S.  "Dead man's float" not in OED.
>>
>> Joel
>>
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>>
>
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