"Tad bit"--On the existence of inadvertent blends

[Cohen, Gerald Leonard]

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From: American Dialect Society on behalf of Arnold M. Zwicky
Sent: Tue 8/15/2006 10:34 AM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: "Tad bit"

<snip>

i realize that this is an old complaint on my part, but i think that
jerry's use of "blend" here stretches the word beyond all
usefulness.  it's just wrong to use a single term for all expressions
that can be analyzed as a combination of two expressions.

to start with, some of these combinations are clearly inadvertent --
things that the person who produced them would (and sometimes does)
disavow.  most of the examples in jerry's 1987 book on syntactic
blends are like this.

  <snip>

******************

    Yes, that's precisely the point.  Blends are no less blends if they arise inadvertently.  We deal here with a widespread feature of language--one that has not yet been fully appreciated by linguists--and of the millions of inadvertent blends produced in the English-speaking world daily, only a few make it into the big time, i.e., the standard language.

    So, for example,  when Richard Nixon in a TV address during the time of the Vietnam War made a slip of the tongue and said "truce-fire," I could see clearly that this was blended from "truce" and "cease-fire."  Or when a mother  inadvertently said about her children: "They're driving me up the crazy," this too is self-evidently a blend---from "They're driving me crazy" and "They're driving me up the wall."  And it is a blend even if no one else in the world ever says it again.

       I've spent 30+ years observing and (for much of the time) collecting blends.  Some of the items I've spotted may be open to interpretations other than blending,  but the basic principle, supported by numerous examples, remains clear to me. Inadvertent blends are nevertheless blends.  To miss this point is to miss one of the most interesting features of everyday speech.

Gerald Cohen                                                                                                                                                                                                                Author, _Syntactic Blends In English Parole_ ("parole" as used by Saussure, i.e., everthing not part of "langue," i.e.,  not part of the standard language; "parole" includes speech errors), Frankfurt a.M.: Peter Lang, 1987. 178 pp.

     

 

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