"defecting"

[Wilson Gray]

On Tue, Oct 20, 2009 at 8:28 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: "defecting"
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> At 11:29 AM -0700 10/20/09, James A. Landau <JJJRLandau at netscape.com> wrote:
>>I heard a woman, discussing a hippie she had known in the 1980's,
>>refer to "defecting to Canada".
>>
>>I've never heard "defecting" in this context.  Also, considering
>>that the man lived in Princeton NJ circa 1980, is it even correct?
>>
>>OT:  from the Christian Science Monitor, referring to a Chinese
>>hostage-rescue exercise:
>>
>>http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/1020/p06s07-wosc.html
>>
>>"CHINESE COMMANDOS IN TRAINING VIDEO
>>In the video, after a failed attempt at negotiating with the
>>"pirates," balaclava clad helicopter and small boat-borne troops
>>storm a vessel and subdue its captors."
>>
>>Is that all the Chinese troops were wearing?
>>
>>      - Jim Landau
>>
>
> Somehow I keep reading this as depicting the Chinese commandos as
> baklava-clad, garbed thus to blend in with any pirates who may have
> wandered into the wine-dark waters of the Aegean.
>
> LH
>
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--
-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

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