Fwd: Police as "pigs"

Laurence Horn laurence.horn at YALE.EDU
Thu Nov 18 18:49:02 UTC 2004


At 10:29 AM -0800 11/18/04, Arnold M. Zwicky wrote:
>Begin forwarded message:
>
>>From: Arnold M. Zwicky <zwicky at csli.stanford.edu>
>>Date: November 18, 2004 10:23:03 AM PST
>>To: Alan Baragona <abaragona at sprynet.com>
>>Subject: Re: Police as "pigs"
>>
>>
>>On Nov 17, 2004, at 5:46 AM, Alan Baragona wrote:
>>
>>>...Whether the Panthers even knew about earlier uses of "pig" is not
>>>clear, but it seems perfectly possible that this was sui generis and
>>>coincidental.
>>
>>i don't care whether "sui generis" was intentional or inadvertent;
>>it's wonderful.
>>
>>arnold (zwicky, not that oinker ziffel)

Indeed.  Reminded me of the old "Sooey Generous" appeal (illustrated
with a pig) from Linguist List a few years back.  (Googling, I find a
number of other hits on this, including an eponymous William Matthews
poem, described as a paean to a pig.  What I was really looking for,
of course, was an inadvertent use, i.e. an eggcorn, of this form, à
la "bonified" and "social moray(s)", but no such luck.

larry



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