Safire

[Scot LaFaive]

Is this the first time you've heard "devolve?" I've heard and used it for
some time.
A question for the more learned: is "-volve" a bound root in English. I'm
guessing it is but just wanted to get another opinion. If it is, then
"de-volve" actually "works" morphologically.

Scot LaFaive


>From: Laurence Urdang <urdang at SBCGLOBAL.NET>
>Reply-To: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>Subject: Safire
>Date: Sun, 8 Jul 2007 07:19:12 -0700
>
>---------------------- Information from the mail header
>-----------------------
>Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>Poster:       Laurence Urdang <urdang at SBCGLOBAL.NET>
>Subject:      Safire
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>For somebody's semiliteracy collection, from today's NYTimes Sunday
>Magazine, "On Language," by somebody named Jaime Epstein, recruited by
>Safire to fill in whilst he's on holiday (as they say in Blighty):
>   "His spelling, if that’s possible, has only devolved since (maybe that’s
>why he finds numbers so elegant), . . ."
>   devolved?
>   L. Urdang
>   Old Lyme
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

_________________________________________________________________
http://liveearth.msn.com

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