hiking the Appalachian trail (was Re: went walkabout)

[Laurence Horn]

Durn--I knew I should have patented (copyrighted?) it before these
euphemisers-come-lately jumped on the bandwagon.  Failing that, I'll
do the obvious and pre-nominate it for the Euphemism of the Year
category at the Baltimore competition.

LH

At 2:15 PM -0400 6/25/09, Benjamin Zimmer wrote:
>(Changed subject line to avoid any further thread-drift confusion.)
>
>On Wed, Jun 24, 2009 at 4:15 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu> 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!
>
>This is clearly a euphemism with legs...
>
>http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/06/never-miss-a-euphemism.html
>http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-folman/finally-a-new-euphemism_b_220568.html
>http://open.salon.com/blog/the_suburban_guerilla/2009/06/24/euphemisms_or_thank_you_governor_sanford
>http://www.woot.com/Blog/ViewEntry.aspx?Id=8612
>http://www.balloon-juice.com/?p=23012
>
>The Twitterers are all over this:
>http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%22Appalachian+Trail%22
>
>And Josh Marshall of TPM is now using it instead of just talking about it:
>
>http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2009/06/if_nothing_else_weve_learned.php
>"That's not to say that some high profile Dems haven't been found
>Hiking the Appalachian Trail in recent years. John Edwards and Eliot
>Spitzer come immediately to mind."
>
>--Ben Zimmer
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org