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

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On Fri, 11 Mar 2005 11:28:36 -0500, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
wrote:

>At 11:13 AM -0500 3/11/05, Dennis R. Preston wrote:
>>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.
>
>and similarly the classic [veys] (< $200) /[vaz] (> $200) example
>(where the latter is often taken to be more costly)

Beat me to it by about a minute!  Gotta post fast around here.


--Ben Zimmer