Schumer vs. Wash. Times on "fulsome"

[Jonathan Lighter]

Thanks, Fred. I wouldn't have bothered. It's just an ad hominem political gotcha in the guise of protecting our language. Had Roberts used that word in that way, the _Times_ would have been silent.

JL

Fred Shapiro <fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU> wrote:
---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Fred Shapiro
Subject: Re: Schumer vs. Wash. Times on "fulsome"
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On Sun, 24 Jul 2005, Jonathan Lighter wrote:

> Like there was any doubt about what Schumer meant.

"Fulsome" is one of the many shibboleths of purists where their own
arguments can be used against them, i.e., it is one of the many
shibboleths of purists for which it turns out that the meaning condemned
is actually the original, etymological sense of the word (see the OED).

I have e-mailed a letter to the editor to the Washington Times to this
effect.

Fred Shapiro


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Fred R. Shapiro Editor
Associate Librarian for Collections and YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS
Access and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press,
Yale Law School forthcoming
e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com
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