Rocks for Jocks, etc. (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Laurence Horn]

At 4:39 PM +0000 4/27/10, ronbutters at aol.com wrote:
>Isn't it the same thing!?

Oh, I was thinking of the old-fashioned emphatic "so" without a
complement that Jespersen claimed only women use ("I'm so tired" as
opposed to "I'm so tired that I'm going to sleep", with only the
latter being approved for use by men).  But I see on re-reading that
Jon's is indeed what I meant by "Gen-X _so_", not what Jespersen (and
Robin Lakoff) meant by "emphatic _so_" of the supposedly sex-linked
variety. Just a terminological issue.

LH



>------Original Message------
>From: Laurence Horn
>Sender: ADS-L
>To: ADS-L
>ReplyTo: ADS-L
>Subject: Re: [ADS-L] Rocks for Jocks, etc. (UNCLASSIFIED)
>Sent: Apr 27, 2010 11:53 AM
>
>At 11:40 AM -0400 4/27/10, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>>"Physics for Poets" was the official name of an introductory physics course
>>for non-majors at NYU around 1970. It was so listed in the catalogue.
>>
>>(That's the standard, not the emphatic, use of "so.")
>
>Or the Gen-X use, as in "I'm so not taking that course."
>
>LH
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
>
>Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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