"rally"; "restore honor"

[Charles C Doyle]

And how about "half-mast" vs. "half-staff"?

--Charlie

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From: American Dialect Society [ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] on behalf of Jim Parish [jparish at SIUE.EDU]
Sent: Monday, August 30, 2010 8:41 AM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: "rally"; "restore honor"

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Charles C Doyle wrote:
> At some point in my youth, I was carefully schooled regarding the distinction between
> "in memory of" and "in honor of."  It's simple (in a prescriptive way, at least):  dead vs.
> alive.

Meanwhile, here in Illinois, we have been getting a stream of gubernatorial proclamations
calling for the flag to be flown at half-mast "on behalf of" one or another soldier, police
officer, or fire fighter. It's been going on under two different governors - Blagojevich and
Quinn - so it isn't (as I initially surmised) just a Blago-ian idiosyncracy.

Jim Parish

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