"kiddy corner" was: Folk etymology definition
Cohen, Gerald Leonard
gcohen at MST.EDU
Sat Mar 8 16:26:39 UTC 2008
Last week a student sent me written directions about how to get to a particular building, which he said (wiith no humor intended) was "kiddy corner across the street from..."
Gerald Cohen
________________________________
From: American Dialect Society on behalf of Dave Wilton
Sent: Fri 3/7/2008 8:41 PM
<snip>
The first sense is a specific category of lexical transformation: taking an
unfamiliar word and modifying it to a form that is familiar, e.g.,
"brideguma" to "bridegroom," "catercorner" to "kittycorner."
<snip>
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