cesspool or hot tub?

[Wilson Gray]

"Poisoned Pen"? Wasn't this term formerly "Poison-Pen," as "dreaded"
used to be "dread"?

-Wilson

On 10/23/06, Benjamin Zimmer <bgzimmer at babel.ling.upenn.edu> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Benjamin Zimmer <bgzimmer at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: cesspool or hot tub?
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On 10/23/06, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> >
> > Here's a new political quote by Anonymous.
> >
> >   A CNN correspodent this a.m. quoted "somone involved in the Abramof
> > investigation" as follows:
> >
> >   "Some conservatives go to Washington thinking it's a cesspool, but they
> > finally decide it's a hot tub."
> >
> >   A lightning-fast search reveals an example from March 13 here :
> >
> >   http://www.house.gov/petri/newslett/mar13_06.htm
>
> That's from the newsletter of Rep. Tom Petri (R-Wisc.). He was using
> the line back in 1999:
>
> -----
> Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, May 17, 1999, p. 6 (Nexis)
> Petri has a "Poisoned Pen Corner," which features nasty letters people
> have sent to him.
> "Many people think congressmen are all fat heads, and the fat has
> melted and clogged their ears," he says in an introduction.
> "Others say their representatives were sent to Washington to clean up
> the national cesspool -- but mistook the cesspool for a hot tub and
> jumped right in."
> -----
>
> Even earlier, from black conservative Bob Woodson:
>
> -----
> Austin American-Statesman, Aug 13, 1996, p. A9 (Factiva)
> He [sc. Bob Woodson] also says that the new GOP lawmakers quickly
> became "infatuated with the perks of office. They found that the
> cesspool they'd been elected to clean up could become a hot tub."
> -----
>
> --Ben Zimmer
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>


--
Everybody says, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange
complaint to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-----
Whoever has lived long enough to find out what life is knows how deep
a debt of gratitude we owe to Adam, the first great benefactor of our
race. He brought death into the world.

--Sam Clemens

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