neat phrases from Kent Desormeaux

[Jonathan Lighter]

I've watched Animal Planet for so long that this usage seems perfectly ordinary.  Furthermore, the "tragic" part might apply more to the owners of the horse than to the horse itself.

  But be that as it may.  Eveybody under the age of 115 should know by now what my freshmen knew thirty years ago (Ow! There goes that durned lumbago agin!), that a "tragedy" is just something that's very, very sad.   Like you go, "Oh, no! That really sucks!"

  JL

Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
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Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Wilson Gray
Subject: Re: neat phrases from Kent Desormeaux
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Amen, Charlie.

-Wilson

On Mon, May 5, 2008 at 10:07 AM, Charles Doyle wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: Charles Doyle
>
> Subject: Re: neat phrases from Kent Desormeaux
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Speaking of the Kentucky Derby: In the media chatter (oral and printed), the word "tragic" has undergone a further degradation of meaning. It is now a TRAGEDY when a horse gets injured and dies--presumably making the brute a tragic figure?
>
> --Charlie
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--
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-----
-Sam'l Clemens

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