genetics

[Laurence Horn]

At 3:08 PM -0400 4/27/10, victor steinbok wrote:
>A radio ad for a "hair transplant center" proclaims that baldness is a
>matter of "either heredity or genetics". Can't say I ever thought it
>was an either/or proposition. Am I missing something? Or is this an
>"interpretive 'or' "?
>
>VS-)

If interpretive "or" means what I think it does, I think the "either"
makes that reading unlikely, just as it would with the metalinguistic
"or" in e.g.
"(*Either) New Haven, or the Elm City".

I think the ad really does suggest an opposition between heredity and
genetics, whatever that would amount to.  (It did take me awhile to
realize that "congenital" =/= "hereditary".

LH

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