in the wild: "misremembers"

Laurence Horn laurence.horn at YALE.EDU
Thu Feb 14 02:21:40 UTC 2008


At 6:08 PM -0800 2/13/08, Arnold M. Zwicky wrote:
>On Feb 13, 2008, at 6:01 PM, Douglas G. Wilson wrote:
>
>>>Another of today's words destined for at least a blip: "misremember".
>>>It's what Roger Clemens claimed (several times) his buddy Andy
>>>Pettite did when the latter presented testimony about the former's
>>>discussing his and his wife's use of illegal steroids and HGH.  It's
>>>not quite "lie", and it's certainly not "forget".  Nor is it
>>>"dismember", even if that's what Clemens has seemed to have in mind
>>>for several of his antagonists.
>>
>>"Misremember" meaning "remember incorrectly" seems ordinary to me.
>>Maybe I'm missing something again.
>
>indeed.  tons of hits, and an OED entry with cites back to the 16th
>century.
>
>arnold
>
As essentially a euphemism for "lying"?  The examples I see don't
have quite the specific flavor of Clemens's use.

LH

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