Query: "$64,000 quesiton"

[sagehen]

>At 11:16 AM -0400 5/9/07, Charles Doyle wrote:
>>I say "icebox" too, Jonathan. Larry is trying to pass as a young coot.
>>
>>--Charlie
>
>Au contraire.  As a card-carrying coot, I am entitled to "icebox"
>with the best (or at least cootiest) of 'em, and I take full
>advantage of the opportunity.  Amazingly, though, when I bring up
>refrigerator/fridge/icebox as an instance of extensionally identical
>items that differ in register and other non-truth-conditional aspects
>of meaning, my students often claim to be entirely unfamiliar with
>the last of these, or to be under the impression that it denotes
>'freezer'.  (Of course "frigidaire" as a generic would be part of
>this paradigm, but that one I have long since given up.)
>
>LH
>
 ~~~~~~~~~
This fully-qualified old coot,  not only occasionally says "icebox, "but
actually grew up with one on the back porch.  To be honest, we also had an
electric refrig in the kitchen, but I remember the iceman with his
horsedrawn wagon & hefty icetongs making regular appearances on our street.
In recognition of the coterie of coots, I've been trying to create a line
of them for a sig, but the limited number of signs that survive translation
into cyberspace, not to mention the great variety of fonts  that turn up on
remote screens, makes this  unlikely  to succeed.
~~~~~~
On the "bolster" thread, I'm with Lynne in wondering what the speaker had
in mind.  The sort of temporary low walls set up alongside highway road
works do rather resemble bolsters of the bedding variety.  Bollards are
more like barrels  or fat standpipes.
AM
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