Usage of 'Nexis' is Baffling

Laurence Horn laurence.horn at YALE.EDU
Sun Apr 8 16:00:33 UTC 2007


At 2:26 AM -0400 4/8/07, Wilson Gray wrote:
>It also could be the case that the writer did use "nexus," but had it
>"corrected" to "nexis" by some semi-literate editor more familiar with
>"Nexis" than with the English lexicon.
>
>-Wilson

And whose semi-literacy didn't extend to the Henry Miller trilogy.
(Or possibly, being semi-literate, only to Sexus and the first half
of Plexus.)

LH

>
>On 4/7/07, Arnold M. Zwicky <zwicky at csli.stanford.edu> wrote:
>>---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>-----------------------
>>Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>Poster:       "Arnold M. Zwicky" <zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU>
>>Subject:      Re: Usage of 'Nexis' is Baffling
>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>On Apr 7, 2007, at 7:50 AM, Doug Harris wrote:
>>
>>>  Does anyone understand what the author of this letter, published in
>>>  today
>>>  Sacramento Bee, meant in her use of the word 'nexis'?....
>>>
>>>  What's fascinating to me on this issue and so many others involving
>>>  the
>>>  safety and security of California families is that there doesn't
>>>  appear to
>>>  be any nexis between these tragic deaths and families destroyed and
>>>  the
>>>  voting patterns in every election.
>>
>>i'd say that the word she was aiming for was "nexus", intending it as
>>a fancy substitute for "connection".
>>
>>arnold
>>
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>
>
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>-----
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