saintly nicking

Joel S. Berson Berson at ATT.NET
Wed Nov 4 17:32:11 UTC 2009


Wilson, I did not mean to be critical of your
spelling -- just of the writer you quoted.

A short story:  I may have gotten the sense of
"nick" many years ago when an uncle and aunt
returned from a trip to London.  They had admired
a hotel mug they'd seen.  When they asked the
waiter whether they could buy one somewhere, he
said "Oh, don't bother.  Just nick it."  So they did.

Joel

At 11/4/2009 11:23 AM, Wilson Gray wrote:
>I'd hardly regard you as pretentious, Joel. After all, I, too,
>understood the writer's point - though I wasn't aware of the
>distinction in spelling - and anyone familiar with the high quality of
>my posts: comments, anecdotes, tales, etc. will certainly assure you
>that I am not in the least pretentious. Indeed, the of humility is
>impressive. ;-)
>
>-Wilson
>
>On Tue, Nov 3, 2009 at 11:08 PM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:
> > ---------------------- Information from the
> mail header -----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> > Subject:      Re: They're as self-centered as we are!
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > At 11/3/2009 05:22 PM, Wilson Gray wrote:
> >>I'd bet a fat man that most
> >>Americans reading his note had not the least idea what the writer
> >>meant by "... borrow, (some would say 'knick') ..."
> >
> > I must be in the pretentious minority again,
> then.  AND I know how to spell it.
> >
> > Joel
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
>
>
>
>--
>-Wilson
>­­­
>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.
>­Mark Twain
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org



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