PDF as a Verb
David Bowie
db.list at PMPKN.NET
Mon Feb 6 18:28:53 UTC 2006
From: Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Oh, OK. I misunderstood. When you said that '''FedEx'' has come to
> mean overnight shipping', I thought you were applying it to the
> process, regardless of the company involved. I don't overnight ship
> much myself, so I don't really have an intuition, but it wouldn't
> surprise me to find that there is dialectal/idiolectal variation of
> the type for Coke (as discussed in Tom Murray's classic paper in
> Names), although I suspect it would be less regionally determined.
FWIW, for me, to FedEx (which i use spoken or written, and written i
capitalize it like that) *is* simply to send something express, no
matter whether it's sent FedEx, UPS, USPS, or using some other company.
Of course, my generic for a sweetened carbonated beverage is coke and
for photocopying is to xerox (neither written capitalized).
--
David Bowie http://pmpkn.net/lx
Jeanne's Two Laws of Chocolate: If there is no chocolate in the
house, there is too little; some must be purchased. If there is
chocolate in the house, there is too much; it must be consumed.
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