now: avoidance of "novel"

[Laurence Horn]

At 6:00 AM -0700 6/20/07, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>_Fox & Friends_ this a.m. interviewed Holly Peterson, author of a
>novel about male nannies titled _The Manny_.
>
>   The word "novel" was avoided, being replaced by "fictional book"
>and "fiction book."
>
>   Had to happen, right?
>
>   JL
>
Did we mention on this thread the evidence from retronymy?  There are
now >80K g-hits for "fictional novel" and a bunch more for "fiction
novel" (harder to count because of irrelevant hits for "science
fiction novel" or "fiction/novel", and puzzlers like "fiction books
and novels").

LH

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