neat phrases from Kent Desormeaux

Wilson Gray hwgray at GMAIL.COM
Tue May 6 22:39:21 UTC 2008


The real tragedy is that some people can trash the kind of money that
it takes to raise a horse to run in the Kentucky Derby and I'm not one
of them. :-(

-Wilson

On Tue, May 6, 2008 at 9:19 AM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at yahoo.com> wrote:
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>  Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>  Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM>
>  Subject:      Re: neat phrases from Kent Desormeaux
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>
>  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:
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>  > 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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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org



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