NYT: "blather" from Pa.?

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On Tue, Apr 1, 2008 at 1:29 PM, Benjamin Zimmer <bgzimmer at ling.upenn.edu> wrote:
> From a New York Times article about Obama's campaigning style in Pennsylvania:
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/01/us/politics/01obama.html
> "Pennsylvania's culture, as the historian David Hackett Fischer noted
> in his book 'Albion's Seed,' is rooted in the English midlands, where
> Scandinavian and English left a muscular and literal imprint. These
> are people distrustful of rank, and finery, and high-flown words. It
> should come as no surprise that the word 'blather' originated here."

Now on Language Log:

http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/005519.html


--Ben Zimmer

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