heart-rendering

[Dennis R. Preston]

LH,

I call your "screed" (which my Eudora likes) and "prescriptivists"
and raise you Eudora's rejection of "sociolingusitic(s)."

dInIs

>---------------------- Information from the mail header
>-----------------------
>Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
>Subject:      Re: heart-rendering
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>At 7:50 AM -0800 2/15/08, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>>In his prepared public statement on yesterday's campus shootings,
>>NIU President John Peters described the outpouring of public
>>sympathy as "renewing and heart-rendering."  He used the word
>>"heart-rendering" in this connection twice within one minute.
>>
>>    This is the first time I've heard "heart-rendering" [sic] used as
>>a synomnym for "moving; heart-warming."
>>
>>    JL
>
>You've been living a (perhaps enviably) sheltered life.  I'm quite
>sure I've heard it, and a rather substantial number of the 56,100 or
>so raw g-hits involve naive occurrences, as opposed to screeds by
>prescriptivists (some detailing with delightful gruesomeness what the
>process of rendering a heart would entail) that would presumably be
>unnecessary in the absence of other naive occurrences...
>
>LH, wondering why Eudora thinks I made up not only "prescriptivists"
>but "screed"
>
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--
Dennis R. Preston
University Distinguished Professor
Department of English
15C Morrill Hall
Michigan State University
East Lansing, MI 48824
517-353-4736
preston at msu.edu

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