[Ads-l] turd tornado

Laurence Horn laurence.horn at YALE.EDU
Thu Aug 18 15:46:38 UTC 2016


> On Aug 18, 2016, at 9:21 AM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> 
> The CNNAL in question (perhaps I should have written "Veteran CNN
> Anchor Lady") was born in 1980.
> 
> The problem with "turdnado" is that it sounds too much like "tornado,"
> making it less effective on TV.

Yeah, it would help to have another syllable, but "turdinado" sounds too much like you're making fun of Ahh-nuld the ex-governator.  
> 
> "_Of_ poop" sounds right to me, btw.  What am I missing? (A sharknado
> _with_ poop would also contain sharks. But hmmm.....)
> 
I suppose you're right about that.  The sequence "except of poop" struck me as weird, but in this context the preposition isn't governed by "except" as it would be in, say, "The bathroom floor is all clean now, except of poop" (instead of the more natural "except for poop"), but rather it's the remnant of an ellipsis:  "It's like a sharknado [of sharks], except of poop [instead].  Substituting poop for sharks, or sharks for poop, depending.

LH 

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