NYT: "blather" from Pa.?

[Seán Fitzpatrick]

<< These are people distrustful of rank, and finery, and high-flown words.
It should come as no surprise that the word 'blather' originated here.>>

Could it be that the reporter's mistake is not iffy etymology but sloppy
writing?  In context, these two sentences—and hence the final "here"—do SEEM
most likely to refer to the American Middle-Atlantic region, but perhaps
they were INTENDED to refer to the English midlands and its people.

BTW:  Note the apparent serial comma in "rank, and finery, and high-flown
words".  Is serial comma NYT style now, or just forced by the anaphoric use
of "and"?

Seán Fitzpatrick
It’s a Gnostic thing. You wouldn't understand.
http://www.logomachon.blogspot.com/
-----Original Message-----
From: Benjamin Zimmer [mailto:bgzimmer at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU]
Sent: Wednesday, 02 April, 2008 03:00
Subject: Re: NYT: "blather" from Pa.?

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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