[Ads-l] Syntactic lend: "What crimes was he breaking?"

Cohen, Gerald Leonard gcohen at MST.EDU
Wed Sep 30 00:10:04 UTC 2020


Two days ago on CNN the moderator asked one of his guests

about President Trump's steps to avoid taxation.  The  question

was, that if the president did such and such involving the depreciation

of his property, "what crimes was he breaking?"

I jotted it down immediately, so I'm sure of the quoted words.

Clearly this is a syntactic blend:

"What crimes was he committing?

plus

"What laws was he breaking?"


Gerald Cohen

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



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