Military jargon

[Jonathan Lighter]

Jesse,

This speaker came from the Northwest and was a graduate student in English at a great metropolitan university.  Educational standards have clearly slipped a little since 1896.

JL

Jesse Sheidlower <jester at PANIX.COM> wrote:
---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Jesse Sheidlower
Subject: Re: Military jargon
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Jonathan Lighter wrote:
> Q: Am I losing it or did I once know a guy (in the late '70s) who
> used "borrow" in a similarly "reversed" way to mean "lend" or "loan".

You could be losing it, but this usage doesn't in itself prove things.

DARE has a nice entry for _borrow_ 'lend', with cites from
Dialect Notes I (1896) on up, the regional note "scattered,
but esp wGt Lakes", and the status label "esp among young
speakers and speakers with grade school educ".

Jesse Sheidlower
OED


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