ABSENT 'without'

[Laurence Horn]

At 3:50 PM -0400 9/26/04, RonButters at AOL.COM wrote:
>In a message dated 9/26/04 3:16:26 PM, zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU writes:
>
>"absent" -- which started out in latinate legalism -- vs. "without"
>>
>>  arnold
>>
>>
>How do we know that ABSENT 'without' startred out in latinate legalism? I
>remember publishing a brief article in AMERICAN SPEECH about this in
>the 1980s,
>and I don't recall that the author made that connection (though maybe he did).
>Since AS is available (and totally indexed) on JSTOR, I could go look it up,
>but I thought since Arnold said it, it must be right--I'd just like
>to know how
>he knows and what his evidence is.

Well, I also posted the OED cites (beginning with one from 1944)
earlier today, which concur with this view, but of course they're not
decisive.

larry