Collegiate "geek" in the '70s (was Re: Synonymy avoidance)

[Jonathan Lighter]

"Y'all" can be used in the singular and "you guys" can't.  Moreover, "y'all" is heavily marked a s Southern, while "you guys" isn't. "Y'all" is one syllable, but "you guys" is two.

(Am not certain of the regional distribution of "gorse" and "furze," or how strongly marked they are for regionality.)

JL

"Dennis R. Preston" <preston at MSU.EDU> wrote:
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Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: "Dennis R. Preston"

Subject: Re: Collegiate "geek" in the '70s (was Re: Synonymy avoidance)
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The "exact synonymy" rule surely applies to varieties, not languages.
"Ya'll" and "you guys" appear to be exact synonyms in the fiction
called "English," but they don't co-exist in one brain (except for
bidialectal speakers), although bidialectal speakers are quick to
begin to make distinctions, as I do now for "greazy" and "greasy."
"Greazy" is really greasy, "greasy" is lightly and delicately oiled.

Remember, there are no such real things as languages.

dInIs (who is happy to admit them as social constructs of enormous importance)



>Google says that some nerds do have wads after all. "Geek" and
>"nerd" are closer, I think, than "geek" and "dork." ("Dork" also
>means "penis" and "geek" does not.) However, a "nerd" need not be a
>"geek" in the computer sense. A "nerd" need only be a "drip."
>
>Any other challengers to "gorse" and "furze"? Anf if they are
>indeed the only exact synonyms in English, who is the genius who
>discovered the fact ?
>
>JL
>
>Ed Keer wrote:
>---------------------- Information from the mail header
>-----------------------
>Sender: American Dialect Society
>Poster: Ed Keer
>Subject: Re: Collegiate "geek" in the '70s (was Re: Synonymy avoidance)
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>But don't forget that the geekwads and dorkwads formed
>a historic wad alliance. While the nerds have no wad.
>
>Ed
>
>
>--- Benjamin Zimmer wrote:
>> On Thu, 10 Mar 2005 21:46:39 -0500, Michael McKernan
>> wrote:
>>
>> >Good to see nerd/nurd appear in this thread. I
>> almost included it as a
>> >'whin' analog in my geek/dork post (and it actually
>> appeared in the later
>> >text of the online ad which prompted my post).
>> >
>> >But whadabout dork?
>> >
>> >As I see/hear it, dork matches geek a lot more
>> closely than nerd does, in
>> >all the non-semantic aspects of synonymy. Then
>> again, nobody else seems to
>> >be very interested in comparing geek/dork (nerd) to
>> gorse/furze (whin).
>>
>> I would say that in current usage, "geek" aligns
>> with "nerd", not "dork".
>> "Dork" is invariably pejorative, while both "geek"
>> and "nerd" have been
>> subject to melioration as the "techie" sense of both
>> terms has become more
>> prominent. "Nerd" was first to undergo ironic
>> melioration, no doubt
>> inspired by the 1986 movie _Revenge of the Nerds_
>> (an expression
>> subsequently applied to the success of Bill Gates et
>> al.) "Geek" has
>> followed the meliorative path of "nerd"-- witness
>> the article in the
>> latest _Time Magazine_ on the consumer-electronics
>> retailer Best Buy:
>>
>>
>http://www.time.com/time/insidebiz/article/0,9171,1034713,00.html
>>
>> Part of Best Buy's recent success has been
>> attributed to their deployment
>> of "the Geek Squad", an army of knowledgeable
>> techies who work as "agents"
>> assisting befuddled customers.
>>
>> See also this 2003 _USA Today_ article on "geek
>> chic":
>>
>>
>http://www.usatoday.com/life/2003-10-22-geek-chic_x.htm
>>
>>
>> --Ben Zimmer
>>
>
>
>
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--
Dennis R. Preston
University Distinguished Professor
Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic,
Asian and African Languages
Wells Hall A-740
Michigan State University
East Lansing, MI 48824-1027 USA
Office: (517) 353-0740
Fax: (517) 432-2736


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