someone/somebody, etc.

[Dennis R. Preston]

In a paper Ahmed Al-Banyan and I published a couple of years ago (on a
usage survey of a large number (almost 4,500) of Michigan university
undergrads [Al-Banyan and Preston, 1998, What is Standard American English?
Studia Anglica Posnaniensia XXXIII, pp. 29-46]), we found that "Everybody
should watch their coats" (which, of course, we stuck in for the "their"
business) was often called "appropriate for informal use only" (25%) (or
even "always inappropriate" [16%]) because many of our respondents wanted
"everyone." Must be some perception out there that "everybody" is
"informal" or even "nonstandard." Who'd a thunk it?

dInIs

>Since there has been no response to this, maybe someone/somebody
>(probably a student) should create a source. My own pragmatic approach
>to such questions, as a lexicographer specializing in the usage aspect
>of words, has been to draw up a concordance of a pair in question (using
>a good contemporary database, not something historical like what the OED
>disk could generate) and note the semantic, syntactic, and other
>differences between the members of the pair. This is just a pragmatic or
>working solution to the problem, but Lynne wants something more
>theoretical, I presume.
>Tom
>
>THOMAS M. PAIKEDAY, lexicographer since 1964
>Latest work: "The User's (tm) Webster," Lexicography, Inc., 2000
>ISBN 0-920865-03-8 from: utpbooks at utpress.utoronto.ca
>
>Lynne Murphy wrote:
>>
>> Does anyone (or anybody) know of any source on semantic/pragmatic
>> differences between the -body and -one words?  (somebody/someone,
>> everybody/everyone, anybody/anyone, nobody/no one)
>>
>> Thanks in advance,
>> Lynne
>> --
>> M. Lynne Murphy
>> Lecturer in Linguistics
>> School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences
>> University of Sussex
>> Brighton BN1 3AN    UK
>> phone:  +44(0)1273-678844
>> fax:    +44(0)1273-671320


Dennis R. Preston
Department of Linguistics and Languages
Michigan State University
East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA
preston at pilot.msu.edu
Office: (517)353-0740
Fax: (517)432-2736