Classless

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On Jan 30, 2008 4:38 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:
>
> At 4:28 PM -0500 1/30/08, Mark Mandel wrote:
> >Interesting. I don't have this sense of "classless", although I do have the
> >sense of "class" that it's based on and such expressions as "got no class",
> >"has lots of class", "Now, that's class!", "a class act", etc. (lifelong
> >USA).
>
> Once place to look is a random sample of the 3,360 g-hits for
> "classless behavior", or the 13,300 for "classless act" (many
> involving a perceived lack of sportsmanship in the context of
> professional or collegiate athletics).

Or zeroing in more directly on sports-related contexts, the ~8,000
g-hits for "classless fans".

--Ben Zimmer

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