"Like" abuse redivivus/ to "be all"

[Mark Mandel]

On Mon, Apr 14, 2008 at 2:26 PM, Arnold M. Zwicky
<zwicky at csli.stanford.edu> wrote:

> preferable -- that is to say, easier -- for *you*, of course.  i'm the
> one who ends up searching the ecdb, Brians, the ADS-L archives, the
> Language Log archives, etc.; googling for bibliography and sources to
> quote; extracting stuff from Wikipedia and from the OED and other
> dictionaries; and so on.  (one of my friends tells me i have an
> overdeveloped sense of scholarly responsibility.)
>

Oh, I like that phrasing!

>
> there is a middle way for me: just let the re-discoveries of quotative
> "all", "is is", exceptional degree modification with "of", and so on
> pass by unremarked; ditto with questions that could be answered by
> reference to sources like Wikipedia, the ecdb, and the OED (look it up
> yourself, dammit); post material that i believe (after some checking
> around) to be genuinely new; and respond to postings that i believe
> (after some checking around) to be about genuinely new topics.
>
>

And that, from my selfish point of view, would be *very* much
preferable to your leaving the list or retreating into lurkerdom.

(Hmm... define macro ... SendKeys "CTFA: Check the archives." ... end
macro ....  ....  Naaah.)

--
Mark Mandel

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