apocryphal = archetypal? unbelievable?

[Jonathan Lighter]

Good enough for me, James. "Legendary" (in the sportscaster sense) is almost
midway between "unbelievable" and "archetypal."

If "infamous" can switch polarity, "apocryphal" can go sidewise

JL

On Sun, Feb 7, 2010 at 11:19 PM, James Harbeck <jharbeck at sympatico.ca>wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       James Harbeck <jharbeck at SYMPATICO.CA>
> Subject:      Re: apocryphal = archetypal? unbelievable?
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Perhaps tangentially (or perhaps relevantly), I've recently seen
> "apocryphal" used of incidents known by the user to have occurred to
> mean "famous" or "legendary" or similar; Google "is now apocryphal",
> "is now almost apocryphal", "has become apocryphal", and similar to
> get some possibles for this. I didn't happen to record the specific
> instance I saw it in most recently, alas.
>
> James Harbeck.
>
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