all but = "all of; a mere" PLUS "prescribe to"

[Jonathan Lighter]

Who said I was alarmed?

  When such things alarm me, I declare it a SOTA.

  I thought "potential linguistic evolution" was one of the things this place was about.

  As a further, albeit unrelated, matter of interest, a young Republican strategist on Fox has just said, "I don't necessarily prescribe to that theory."

  Over 1,000 raw Googlits for "prescribe to that," but almost none for "proscribe to..." or "perscribe to...," which suggests that the afflicted are relatively literate.

  JL





"David A. Daniel" <dad at POKERWIZ.COM> wrote:
  ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: "David A. Daniel"
Subject: Re: "all but" = all of; a mere"
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Why should we be exercised about a usage of "all but" (which should,
apparently, have been "all of") by someone who follows it with "three days
to red the book" (yes, original says "red", not "read"). So, guy writes "red
the book," we think it's a typo; guy writes "all but," it is a linguistic
event. Balderdash. Let us be a little more circumspect and a little less
alarmist about what constitutes potential linguistic evolution vs. what
constitutes a blunder.
DAD

-----Original Message-----
From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of
Jonathan Lighter
Sent: Wednesday, March 05, 2008 4:59 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: "all but" = all of; a mere"
Have seen this before in undergrad writing; don't know just when:

2006 Amazon.com Customer Review
[http://www.amazon.com/review/product/0613279085?showViewpoints=1]: At the
age of 30(6 years ago) i bought a copy of the book AND the cliffs notes to
help me through the difficult dialogue. i found this to be a page turner. it
took me all but three days to red the book-even with its level diffculty.

JL


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