"etymological fallacy"
Gordon, Matthew J.
GordonMJ at MISSOURI.EDU
Wed Aug 14 01:13:36 UTC 2002
I must have been thinking about Mill's military brother, General, when I typed 'Mills'.
-----Original Message-----
From: Gordon, Matthew J.
Sent: Tue 8/13/2002 8:10 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Cc:
Subject: Re: "etymological fallacy"
I'm pretty sure Dick Bailey discusses this fallacy (and uses this term) in his book on 19th Century English. I don't have it with me here to check whether he cites Mills.
-----Original Message-----
From: Laurence Horn [mailto:laurence.horn at YALE.EDU]
Sent: Tue 8/13/2002 8:08 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Cc:
Subject: Re: "etymological fallacy"
At 8:25 PM -0400 8/13/02, Frank Abate wrote:
>Larry H pointed out ... that Mill first mentioned this, and I'm sure
>that's right. Likely I heard it somewhere, liked it, and didn't realize the
>source.
>
>In any case, the validity of the etymological fallacy applies, then and now.
Equally likely, you independently invented the expression, as I did,
and only later discovered, as I did, that J. S. Mill beat you to the
punch by 125+ years. (One advantage, or disadvantage, of teaching
this stuff is to have students who use their "journals of linguistic
awareness" to call one's attention to one's having been thus
punch-beaten.)
larry
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