semantic drift: "wrought" = ?

Jonathan Lighter wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM
Tue Dec 18 16:59:59 UTC 2007


None of the OED senses, including that of "wrought-up," seems to fit here.  "Overwrought" is possible, but even that seems like a stretch.   From a mishearing of "rotten with"?

  1999 Laura Schlessinger, in Dean Memering & William Palmer _Discovering Arguments_ (Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 2002) 123: It's the hyperbole that always gets me. The pro-abortion feminists are wrought with it. Take, for example, Gloria Steinem's quote eulogizing Justice Blackmun (author of _Roe_ vs. _Wade_): "Justice Blackmun saved more women's lives than any other person in history."

  "Dr. Laura" is well known radio talk-show host.

  JL


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