the precisely Adj N

[Alison Murie]

On May 27, 2009, at 12:14 PM, Randy Alexander wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Randy Alexander <strangeguitars at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      the precisely Adj N
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Just saw this in a NYT article:
>
> "By the time the children go to bed, I am as drained as any mother who
> has spent her day working, car pooling, building Lego castles and
> shopping for the precisely correct soccer cleat."
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/27/fashion/27love.html?
> _r=3&pagewanted=1
>
> (Quoted sentence is on the second page.)
>
> I would have to change that to "precisely the correct soccer cleat".
>
~~~~~~~~~~
What am I missing here?  "the precisely correct soccer cleat" sounds
okay to me (aside from being a rather startling idea).
AM

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