Who is Rosetta Stone?

[Jonathan Lighter]

The RosSETta Stone.  It ain't just any stone, dude.

  JL

Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU> wrote:
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Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Laurence Horn
Subject: Re: Who is Rosetta Stone?
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At 12:20 PM -0500 1/23/06, Mark A. Mandel wrote:
>Larry sez:
>>>>
>I also say "Plymouth ROCK", so it's not just poor Rosetta I'm
>slighting. I think it's that these are more like "Fifth AVenue" or
>"Raglan ROAD" than like "Forty-SECond Street", in that neither stones
>nor rocks are semantically empty or unmarked enough to warrant the
>stress retraction.
><<<
>
>Yeah, but it's "_the_ Rosetta Stone" (that's _highlighting_, not stress),
>not *"Rosetta Stone". It isn't a landmark or a location, and the article is
>a necessary (to me) part of its name, unlike your examples.

OK, but is it "the RoSETta Stone" or "the Rosetta STONE"?

L

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