etymological = "semantic"

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On 7/5/07, Cohen, Gerald Leonard <gcohen at umr.edu> wrote:
>
> > From: American Dialect Society on behalf of Laurence Horn
> >
> > At 10:46 AM -0700 7/5/07, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
> > > 2007 _New Yorker_ (July 2) 25: [T]he gang of uptown "girls" (this
> > > breed of woman seeks not only cosmetic but etymological eternal
> > > youth)...function as a kind of pedicured Greek chorus.
> > >
> > > I'm not even sure what "etymological" eternal youth would mean.
> >
> > or maybe "literal", now that "literal" no longer means 'literal'?
>
> Yes. Greek "etymos" means "true," and so the writer seems to be speaking
> of *truly* eternal youth --- eternal youth in its truest sense.

I think Gerry's guilty of the etymological fallacy!


--Ben Zimmer

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