"substitute by" = "replace with"

[Wilson Gray]

Isn't this perhaps influenced somewhat by loan translation? Cf. German

substituieren "X" durch "Y" = substitute "Y" for "X" and not ... "X" for "Y"

It's a well-known _faux ami_ that occurs in many Continental
languages. Well, in the few that I can read, at least. :-)

-Wilson

On 8/28/06, Arnold M. Zwicky <zwicky at csli.stanford.edu> wrote:
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> Poster:       "Arnold M. Zwicky" <zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: "substitute by" = "replace with"
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Aug 28, 2006, at 9:52 AM, Jon Lighter wrote:
>
> > Here's a Ph.D.-level ex. of this usage :
> >
> >   1982 Allan Rodway _The Craft of Criticism_ (Cambridge: C.U.P.)
> > 70 : But the revision seems to substitute one kind of flaw by another.
> >
> >   OED uncharacteristically goes out of its way to call a related
> > construction "incorrect," not once but twice (_substitute_, v., 4a,
> > 4b).  But none of its exx. are quite as odd as the above.
> >
> >   BTW, Prof. Rodway's book provides a splendid explication of pre-
> > deconstructive literary criticism.
>
> this is an example of the usage that's been around for some time and
> with some frequency (it's even in MWDEU), what i called innovative
> "substitute" in my earlier postings on the subject:
>
> original: substitute NEW for OLD
> innovative: substitute OLD by/with NEW
> reversed: substitute OLD for NEW
>
> reversed "substitute" is the real stunner.  pretty recent, and only
> recently working its way into north america.
>
> arnold
>
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--
-Wilson
––
Everybody says, "How hard it is that we have to die"––a strange
complaint to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.

--Sam Clemens

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