[antedating] "snuck" 1881

[Jonathan Lighter]

In this context, "mofo" implies a certain restraint, even some condescending humor.  My usage/character-analysis skills would thus allow me to deduce that a "fat lip" might be all that was forthcoming from this speaker, rather than the complete and perhaps terminal workover that might accompany a franker utterance.

  You wrote:
  <Is it rillih inni bidih say "mofo"?>

  Wilson, you are the Robert Burns of your generation.

  JL

Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
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Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Wilson Gray
Subject: Re: [antedating] "snuck" 1881
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On Nov 25, 2007 1:07 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: Jonathan Lighter
> Subject: Re: [antedating] "snuck" 1881
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> My own take on "not a real word" is that it means, "I fear that a certain English teacher in my past would have raked me painfully over the coals for innocently and unsuspectingly using this word, so you better not use it either. Moron!"
>
> As I mentioned long ago, "to incent" sounds stupid to me, undoubtedly, in part, for unconscious or preconscious reasons, and I don't like it. However, that's as far as I choose to meddle in other people's lives. I do not make "global" (ugh!) judgments about character and intelligence based on isolated items of usage.
>
> Except in sentences of the type, "Irregardless, you're lookin' for fat lip, mofo!"
>
> JL




-Wilson

> "Arnold M. Zwicky" wrote:
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> Poster: "Arnold M. Zwicky"
> Subject: Re: [antedating] "snuck" 1881
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Nov 24, 2007, at 9:19 AM, Jon Lighter wrote:
>
> > I was caught yesterday in the middle of one of those tedious
> > discussions about whether "snuck" is a "real word." I affirmed that
> > it was, at least in the good ol' U.S. of A. When
> > that didn't work I tried sarcasm: "If it isn't a word, what is
> > it?" This was met by knowing nods on the one side and looks of
> > disbelief and pity on the other. Clearly _argumentum ad
> > authoritatem_ does not work in such cases.
>
> i've been working on a Language Log posting on this "not a word" stuff
> for some time now, since Eugene Volokh ranted on his blog about it a
> while ago:
>
> http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2007_08_19-2007_08_25.shtml#1187738395
>
> i took a bash at the topic a while back --
>
> AZ, 11/17/04: Not a word!
> http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001652.html
>
> but i think it's time for another.
>
> arnold
>
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