ancestor = "descendant"

[Laurence Horn]

At 2:39 PM -0800 3/1/07, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>Oh, Barbara, pleease do.
>
>   BTW, more semanticdrift: newspersons and others are increasingly
>using "shocked" (which for most of us has strong overtones of
>disturbance and dismay) to mean "surprised" in neutral or even
>positive contexts.
>
Well, since Casablanca, "shocked...shocked" has come to signify 'not
really surprised at all, but pretending to be', so perhaps "shocked"
ends up a bit weakened too.  Blame it on Claude Rains.

LH

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