Fellow Lexicographers [was: lonely vs. lonesome?]

[Peter A. McGraw]

--On Tuesday, August 27, 2002 9:18 PM -0400 Laurence Horn
<laurence.horn at YALE.EDU> wrote:

>   I
> noticed, on ABC's World News Tonight tonight, Dick Cheney's
> defense--or actually it might have been Rumsfeld's (which would put
> it even closer to Tom's farm-based Minnesotan); they're all beginning
> to sound alike to me--of the U.S. having to take a "lonesome" action
> against Iraq even if the rest of the world opposes us.  The ABC
> newscaster then paraphrased him as saying that we might have to take
> a "lonely" position.  Sorry my memory of this sequence and
> "translation" isn't more precise.  Anyone else catch it?

Yes.  It was Rumsfeld addressing a group of Marines, and I hoped I'd
remember the "exchange" verbatim, but of course I don't this morning.  I'm
not sure whether Rumsfeld actually used "lonesome" attributively--it could
have been something like, "It might be lonesome out there [in front] at
first...."  In any case, the correspondent leaped in with "lonely," almost
as if correcting him.  (Note to self: must remember to keep a notepad by
the TV.)

Peter Mc.

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                               Peter A. McGraw
                   Linfield College   *   McMinnville, OR
                            pmcgraw at linfield.edu