spelled = 'spelled out' (as in 'explained in detail')

[Jonathan Lighter]

Seems new to me.

JL

Michael McKernan <mckernan at LOCALNET.COM> wrote:
---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Michael McKernan
Subject: spelled = 'spelled out' (as in 'explained in detail')
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

>From today's Washington Post:

>Anti-Bush, And Mincing No Words

> Controversy and intrigue have swirled around Venezuela's Hugo Chavez...
>
> While Chavez was in New York last week for the gathering of world leaders
>at the United Nations, he sat down with Newsweek-Washington Post's Lally
>Weymouth. He spelled his dislike for the Bush administration and described
>himself as a revolutionary.

content/article/2005/09/24/AR2005092400016.html>

QUESTION: how common is it to use the phrase '(person or source) spelled
[something other than a word]' with same meaning as 'spelled out [something
other than a word]'?

This does not appear to be a meaning listed for the verb 'to spell' in any
dictionary of mine (of course, I don't have OED available).

It's difficult to Google, but by eliminating most of the 'spelled his name'
variations, I came up with less than 450 hits, many of which still referred
to spelling names or specific words.

Michael McKernan


---------------------------------
Yahoo! for Good
 Click here to donate to the Hurricane Katrina relief effort.