ToTN

[sagehen]

 >not exactly out of nowhere, since purists have been alternately
>complaining for centuries (documented in Dennis Baron's book, if
>memory serves) about lazy speakers who persist in lopping the
>beginnings and ends of helpless words (like Wilson's people,
>complaining about "till" or "bus") or about idle speakers who add
>unnecessary, redundant, and superfluous syllables to perfectly good
>words (the ones who complain about "unto" and "until").  Of course,
>both sects have typically have operated in blithe ignorance of the
>actual histories of the words involved.
>
>LH
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Um. Does this mean I *shouldn't* write to my local npr station to ask their
announcers/news reporters to notice that "preventive" does not have four
syllables?
AM


~@:>   ~@:>   ~@:>   ~@:>

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org