Fun

[Laurence Horn]

At 11:57 AM -0700 8/3/02, Anne Gilbert wrote:
>  > I wonder about this example.  I have heard the US Atty General addressed
>as
>>  "General."  This may or may not be the proper form (my undrstanding of
>>  protocol is pretty hazy), but if it is, it suggests that in this case,
>>  General is the noun and Attorney is the adjective,  and, of course,
>>  "attorney generals"  would be right!
>
>Technically(in a "grammatical" sense) "attorneys general" is "correct",
>which is the sort of thing Safire is worried about.

Not always.  He sometimes sides with Mme. "Norma Loquendi".

>  The problem is, that I
>rather doubt anybody actually *says* "attorneys general" any more(if they
>ever did). I keep hearing things like "attorney generals".  But that's
>another story.
>Anne G
>
Remember, this isn't Bill Safire, but The Onion's fantasy story.  I
can never predict which prescriptivist bugaboos the real Safire
adopts and which ones he rejects.  There's no way to know Safire
would actually insist on "attorneys general" unless he's actually
said so.

larry