[Ads-l] "The root of all languages"

[Joel Berson]

Amy, In the early modern era Larry would be required to stand in the central aisle of the meeting room, or at its door, with a paper on his hat, or hung from his chest, having on it the letters "I am a punner".  A second offense would be punished with a cleft stick pinsched on the tongue.  A third offense would receive the sentence of wearing the letter P, cut out in cloth of a contrary color to his clothes and sewn on the outside of his uppermost garment, in a most eminent place thereof, for ever after.

Joel

      From: Amy West <medievalist at W-STS.COM>
 To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU 
 Sent: Wednesday, February 24, 2016 8:42 AM
 Subject: Re: [ADS-L] "The root of all languages"
   
On 2/24/16 12:00 AM, ADS-L automatic digest system wrote:

      From: Laurence Horn<laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
  To:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU  
  Sent: Tuesday, February 23, 2016 4:37 PM
  Subject: Re: [ADS-L] "The root of all languages"
    

> On Feb 23, 2016, at 3:42 PM, Joel Berson<berson at att.net>  wrote:
>
> Today's puzzling Boston Globe again --
>
>
> "Long ago, I spent some years in what now is Namibia, mostly in the Kalahari Desert. At the time, the Kalahari was virtually unexplored except by the people known as San, Bushmen, or Ju/wa hunter gatherers, now believed to have been the people from whom all of us descend. Their language is thought to be the root of all languages

Ah, it all clicks for me now.

LH

> Date:    Wed, 24 Feb 2016 00:49:51 +0000
> From:    Joel Berson<berson at ATT.NET>
> Subject: Re: "The root of all languages"
>
> Groan.
>
> Joel
The worst thing, Joel, is that he does this live and in person as well. 
I think the ADS annual meeting should carry a warning label because of 
this. ;-)

---Amy West

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org