lexical query

[Beverly Flanigan]

Stretching the definition a bit, English "sanction" has always needed
context to disambiguate.

At 12:07 PM 9/2/2007, you wrote:
>---------------------- Information from the mail header
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>Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>Poster:       "Arnold M. Zwicky" <zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU>
>Subject:      lexical query
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>an old friend came to me yesterday with a language question
>(apparently, it was Ask-A-Linguist Day at the Palo Alto Farmers'
>Market): is there a language with a word referring to something that
>is both a blessing and a curse?
>
>(obviously, "blessing" and "curse" will require some cultural
>translation.)
>
>everybody seems to think that yiddish must be such a language, but no
>one has yet come up with a relevant lexical item.
>
>any nominations from the floor?
>
>arnold
>
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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org