[Ads-l] [Non-DoD Source] Re: "man" avoidance

Laurence Horn laurence.horn at YALE.EDU
Mon Sep 26 17:49:05 UTC 2016


> On Sep 26, 2016, at 12:42 PM, MULLINS, WILLIAM D (Bill) CIV USARMY RDECOM AMRDEC (US) <william.d.mullins18.civ at MAIL.MIL> wrote:
> 
>> 
>> It's like the middle-schooler who writes, _Ulysses_ is a book by a man named James Joyce."
>> 
>> "A man named" adds nothing to the sentence . .  .
> 
> Unless the assignment is "Give me a 100 word book report."  "A man named " gets you 3% farther down the road.
> 
> 
But "...a human being named...", while less informative than "...a man named...", does add an additional word.  

LH

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



More information about the Ads-l mailing list