Vals Kilmer (like "attorneys general"?)

[Jonathan Lighter]

My impression is that "General," as a term of address for a.-g.'s and s.-g.'s, is pretty recent and, indeed, practiced mainly by those who don't seem to realize that "general" is a postpositive adjective.  To such speakers, these officials really are "generals" of some kind. What kind is not obvious. (Why the Surgeon-General of the United States dresses like an admiral of Ruritania is another question.)

  Military generals are referred to, in full, as "general officers." This has been true for centuries. The title comes from the one-word noun, which is a clipping of "general officer."

  I still think that "Vals Kilmer" is the same kind of wacky hypercorrection as "stewardi," which I took to be a self-evident joke until I met a seemingly normal person who was "sure" that it was the "correct" form, though no longer used because it "sounds funny."  In fact, till today I'd have thought that "Vals Kilmer" was "self-evidently" impossible.

  The subtitle of the 1978 miniseries _Holocaust_ was  "The Story of the Family Weiss"  [http://library.maricopa.edu/ipac20/ipac.jsp?profile=cgc2&index=BIB&term=194741#focus].  I don't know whether this construction was simply an imitation of Yiddish and German syntax, or whether it was once also common in English.

  JL


sagehen <sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM> wrote:
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Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: sagehen
Subject: Re: Vals Kilmer (like "attorneys general"?)
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>>"Attorneys general": It still strikes me that there is something
>>cock-eyed about this usage. Why do we address the holder of this office as
>>"General?" (As, I suppose, we do the Surgeon General, though I can't
>>remember ever hearing one addressed.) This strongly suggests that "general"
>>is meant as a rank (noun) and that it is modified by attorney. Consider
>>lieutenant generals and brigadier generals, for instance, also addressed as
>>"General."
>>AM
~~~~~~~~~
>Of course it is cock-eyed, although French-eyed would be a better
>label. The French term (hence the possibility of modifiers to the
>eight) indicates the "general" scope of the office-holder's interest,
>not a military-like rank at all.
>
>dInIs
~~~~~~~~~~~
I've no beef with adjectives following nouns, a la francais. This still
doesn't explain why we address this (general interest) attorney as
"General" if it isn't meant as a rank.....?
AM


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