Matrushka; Hryvna

Dennis R. Preston preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU
Thu Jul 18 23:06:00 UTC 2002


larry,

Does preventive homonymy go only one way? It's better for policemen
to get laid than to lie? (Actually, i would think so, but that may be
an ethical-political prejudice.)

dInIs

>At 12:03 PM -0400 7/18/02, Mark A Mandel wrote:
>>On Thu, 18 Jul 2002 Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote:
>>
>>#LAYING POLICEMAN--a speed bump.  Said by my tour guide, when asked if
>>#the bumps in the road have a slang name.
>>
>>We first heard "sleeping policeman" for these in Jamaica in 1972.
>>
>No doubt "lying policeman" (grammatically more "correct" than laying)
>is blocked by homonymy...
>
>larry

--
Dennis R. Preston
Professor of Linguistics
Department of Linguistics and Languages
740 Wells Hall A
Michigan State University
East Lansing, MI 48824-1027 USA
Office - (517) 353-0740
Fax - (517) 432-2736



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