Usage of 'Nexis' is Baffling

[Jonathan Lighter]

Miller was going to add "Lexus," "Texus," and "Czechsus" but was dissuaded.

  JL





Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU> wrote:
  ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Laurence Horn
Subject: Re: Usage of 'Nexis' is Baffling
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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 wrote:
>>---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>-----------------------
>>Sender: American Dialect Society
>>Poster: "Arnold M. Zwicky"
>>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
>>
>>------------------------------------------------------------
>>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>
>
>
>--
>All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
>come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
>-----
> -Sam'l Clemens
>
>"Experience" is the ability to recognize a mistake when you make it, again.
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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



---------------------------------
No need to miss a message. Get email on-the-go
with Yahoo! Mail for Mobile. Get started.

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