"damned fool" / "precedures" and "bullets"

[Jonathan Lighter]

Certainly a "damn(ed) fool/ damfool" is worse than a plain fool, but the phrase seems to me not to be lexicalized to any degree. In othere words, one may have to be unusually reckless or unthinking to qualify as a "damned fool," but catastrophic results are not quite guaranteed. (A similar, though not quite parallel situation, is exhibited by "dumb ass" and "dumb-ass.")

  I have a friend who has said on more than one occasion, "There are fools, there are damn fools, and then there are goddamn fools!"

  Regarding "bullet," you're exactly right about its origin. I mentioned it because - like "precedure" - it didn't sound at all idiosyncratic.

  JL

"James A. Landau" <JJJRLandau at NETSCAPE.COM> wrote:
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Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: "James A. Landau"
Subject: Re: "precedures" and "bullets"
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"bullets" are the dark round circles used to identify items of a list in a briefing paper or similar document, and hence by extension the items so identified are called "bullets". It's common usage. The speaker extended "bullets" a little to mean "highlights of an audio recording".

I notice the usage of "damned fool" below to mean simply "idiot, simpleton, etc." In my experience "damn fool" (I don't recall ever having seen it spelt "damned" but it's possible) has the different, highly specific meaning of "someone whose stupidity leads to, or potentially leads to, dangerous and perhaps lethal results". Does anyone else agree with me on this specialized meaning?

/precedures/ doesn't bother me because "procedures" is commonly pronounced /pr at cedures/ and it's easy to get the wrong substitution for the @. Also note that "precede" and "proceed", although they have different meanings, are both verbs of motion and easy to confuse or conflate.

- Jim Landau



From: "hpst at earthlink.net"
Subject: Re: "precedures" and "bullets"
Date: Tue 08/29/06 12:08 AM


Give the woman a break.

I don't know how many times you have been interviewed on live TV but I
can tell you from experience that it can be very disconcerting when you are
told to look into the camera and to answer questions from someone you
can not see so you might very well say or pronounce a word incorrectly or
even use the wrong word.

I know that I have done it in the past and fully expect to do it again
in the future.

As soon as the word passes your lips you think Oops but if you are on
live there is nothing you can do to change it without appearing to be an even
more damned fool than you already appear to be so you let it pass and
hope that no one notices.

You may be correct about your analysis but there is an alternate
explanation for her mistake.

Page Stephens


> [Original Message]
> From: Jonathan Lighter
> To:
> Date: 8/28/2006 12:27:24 PM
> Subject: [ADS-L] "precedures" and "bullets"
>
> Debbie Hersman, a member of the NTSB, has just explained at a news
conference that her team will investigate "all precedures" related to
yesterday's plane crash.
>
> Her enunciation was quite clear: "pree-cedures." If it means
anything, it could be "preliminary procedures." Maybe.
>
> Well over 100,000 raw Googlits for "precedure/s."
>
> She also promised to reveal "some bullets" (i.e., "brief highlights")
>from the plane's flight recorder.




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