stance?

[Mark Mandel]

To me, "stance" is entirely wrong here: it refers to a physical
posture, or by metaphorical extension to an attitude (a near-synonym
whose extended sense is now its primary one). Presumably he was
thinking of "standing [in the rankings]", another extension of a
cognate.

On 8/9/08, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:
> At 9:40 AM -0400 8/9/08, Joel S. Berson wrote:
>>At 8/8/2008 06:52 PM, sagehen wrote:
>>>Heard just now on NPR's Olympics report:  Some one's or some team's
>>> "stance"
>>>as No. 1.  This sounds a bit off to me. I'm not sure why.  I would expect
>>>"standing" as being more other-related.  Stance sounds very
>>> self-contained.
>>>[Probably I'm just getting a bit crotchety in my geriatric state!]
>>
>>Perhaps it's an "in your face, we're Number 1" posture ...
>>
>>Joel
>>
> Maybe it was inspired by Sen. Larry Craig (R-ID), he of the
> celebrated "wide stance".
>
> LH
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>


--
Mark Mandel

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org