an unexpected comparative

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On Sun, Oct 11, 2009 at 10:53 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:
>
> At 10:29 PM -0400 10/11/09, Wilson Gray wrote:
>>Oh, now I get it. Your daughter said "butch-er," thinking [[butch]er],
>>but you heard "butcher" and thought [butcher]! :-)
>>
>
> It really is quite a nice one, since the Janus-faced syntactic frame
> is necessary:  "N is butcher" or "N is a butcher" would disambiguate
> in opposite directions, but "N is a little butcher" works (at least
> at first blush) for both.

Not unlike the various jokes about knowing a little Greek, eating a
little Chinese, etc.


--Ben Zimmer

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