Russian racehorses, Cooter Brown, fast foxes

Arnold Zwicky zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU
Sat Mar 18 18:44:56 UTC 2000


lynne: I love, Arnold, how you contrast us here with "ordinary
people."

well, i considered "normals"; would you have preferred that?  or
"laypeople" (versus "professionals" or "experts").  or
"non-specialists" (vs. "specialists")?  or "non-linguists"
(vs. "linguists")?  or "the folk" (vs. "scholars")?  what does one
say?

lynne: ...isn't Dorothy pretty well understood as a _Wizard of Oz_
reference?

not with respect to its origin.  i believe there are attestations from
before the movie, and certainly there are attestations from well
before the movie became an icon of the gay male community.  (no one
thinks the books had anything to do with it.  judy garland is clearly
crucial here.)

but, as lynne suggests, the movie probably boosted the appropriateness
of the name "dorothy".  the histories of words are frequently far from
straight-line paths, with only a single influence.  but if we're
asking about the earliest uses, then judy garland's dorothy is
probably right out of it.

arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu)



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