antedate for 'taboo', "linguistic prohibition"

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On 9/29/07, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> As late as 1959 or 1960 I read or was told that "The United States is..." was "incorrect."
> But not even I fell for that one.
>
>   The controversy was a well-known cause of the Civil War.

Uh, yeah, well...

http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/002663.html


--Ben Zimmer

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