"Vacate,' v = "vacation," v?

Laurence Horn laurence.horn at YALE.EDU
Fri Feb 3 19:17:27 UTC 2006


At 1:40 PM -0500 2/3/06, Wilson Gray wrote:
>Heard in passing (black male ca.25 years old):
>
>"I got laid off, so I though that I would just vacate for a while."
>
>It could have been that he was shooting for "vegetate" and missed, but
>I very much doubt it.
>
>-Wilson Gray
>
Well, the alternative back-formed verb would have to be "vaca(i)sh",
as in "transish", and even if you didn't mind saying it, it's hard to
figure out how to spell, so we might as well go with "vacate", which
presents no such probs.

Larry

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