"gerries" for old persons

[Prof. R. Sussex]

Geoff

Well known in Australian English, together with about 2,000 others in
-ie/-y. Also in this semantic area oldies, the olds (not a car here),
grayie, oldster, crustie (an unkempt older person).

This formation is apparently spreading in the US - a colleague in
Texas tells me his daughter says she is using her "cellie".

Roly Sussex


>
>
>Date:    Mon, 15 Mar 2004 23:39:50 -0800
>From:    Geoffrey Nunberg <nunberg at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU>
>Subject: "gerries" for old persons
>
>Does anyone know anything about this word? I heard it used by the
>20-something son of a friend, and Google turns up some hits, but it's
>hard to tell what its status is. It also turns up "wrinklies" and
>"crumble" -- are there other new items of this type?
>
>Geoff Nunberg
>

--

Roly Sussex
Professor of Applied Language Studies
Department of French, German, Russian, Spanish and Applied Linguistics
School of Languages and Comparative Cultural Studies
The University of Queensland
Brisbane
Queensland 4072
AUSTRALIA

Office: Greenwood 434 (Building 32)
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