The nefarious "they"

Arnold M. Zwicky zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU
Wed Sep 21 20:33:29 UTC 2005


On Sep 21, 2005, at 6:28 AM, Grant Barrett wrote:

> Nice self-conscious example of "they" carrying a negative payload in
> a discussion of a parking lot used by gays for sexual cruising:
>
> "You would see one guy in a car and then another head would pop up,
> or they would gather and have sex in the woods," he said. The lot was
> partitioned off in recent years for official vehicles, he said,
> adding, "I guess that's when they - I hate to say 'they' but I don't
> know what words to use - they migrated to the other lot."

i guess this is the "they" that's short for "those people".

arnold



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