Hallucinating distinctions (was New Jersey Dialects)

[Arnold M. Zwicky]

On Oct 20, 2004, at 12:36 PM, Patti J. Kurtz wrote:

> ...But for me, it's a couch...

for the record: i do not deny that some people have *either* "sofa"
*or* "couch" as the term they ordinarily use (while recognizing that
others have the other word).  this would be like the most common
patterns for "soda" vs. "pop".

i also do not deny that still others have both terms, stably
differentiated by referent or by register.

but it seems pretty clear that lots of people have both terms in mostly
unstable variation (though one or the other is frozen in particular
idiomatic expressions, like "sofabed" or "couch potato").

arnold