went walkabout

[Joel S. Berson]

At 6/24/2009 04:15 PM, Laurence Horn wrote:
>At 3:54 PM -0400 6/24/09, Benjamin Zimmer wrote:
>>On Wed, Jun 24, 2009 at 3:48 PM, Laurence Horn<laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:
>>>
>>>  I wonder if "go walkabout" (or "hike the Appalachian Trail") will now
>>>  become established as a euphemism:
>>
>>The latter was suggested by a Talking Points Memo reader yesterday,
>>before the full story emerged:
>>
>>http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2009/06/coining_a_phrase.php
>Wow, that's impressive on SP's part--coining a euphemism before
>anyone even knew what it was a euphemism *for*.  Next time I go off
>to Argentina for an illicit weekend with my lover there, I'll
>certainly know what to tell my family (and the press) I was doing!
>
>LH

Or was he just lucky?  The story put out (at an early time) was that
Sanford was hiking in the Appalachians -- that could have suggested
walking about.

Joel

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