"ascribe" = subscribe

[Jonathan Lighter]

You had me going there for a minute.

  BTW, the context shows that "leviathan" is used attributively here.  _Liopleurodon_ was a reptilian sea monster of the dino period.

  JL

Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
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Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Wilson Gray
Subject: Re: "ascribe" = subscribe
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I read the sentence as something that might be slightly paraphrased
as, "Not everyone ascribes estimates of Liopleurodon's length to the
above leviathan." What's odd about that? In what way would the
replacement of "ascribe" by "subscribe' not disturb the meaning of the
sentence?

Just kidding!

-Wilson

On 5/10/07, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: Jonathan Lighter
> Subject: "ascribe" = subscribe
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> 2002 Mark Renz _Megalodon: Hunting the Hunter_ (Lehigh Acres, Fla.: PaleoPress) 141: Not everyone ascribes to the above leviathan estimates of _Liopleurodon's_ length.
>
> Mr. Renz is a journalist and amateur paleontologist; his book _Fossiling in Florida_ is published by University Press of Florida.
>
> JL
>
>
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