closed circle of friends

[Joel S. Berson]

At 2/26/2008 03:35 PM, RonButters at AOL.COM wrote:
>Miley Cyrus, quoted in today's Orlando Sentinel (2-26-08, pA2):
>
>"... My mom is more strict than my dad. You want to keep your closed circle
>of friends. And sometimes my mom is saying: 'I have a bad vibe about this
>person. She needs to hang out with you when I'm around just to keep
>you safe'. ..."
>
>Does it appear that Ms. Cyrus has reinterpreted the normal idiom, "close
>circle of friends" (= group of close friends) to be "closed circle of friends"
>(meaning 'friends that one sees without parents [or other outsiders] present)?

No.  I understood her immediately, and with a different sense (the
one that Ron suggests) from "close circle."

Joel

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