out-Xing X

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On Thu, Jan 21, 2010 at 10:29 AM, Jesse Sheidlower wrote:
>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jesse Sheidlower <jester at PANIX.COM>
> Subject:      Re: out-Xing X
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Thu, Jan 21, 2010 at 10:25:14AM -0500, David Barnhart wrote:
> > I saw in this morning's NYT (p B13) the use of "out-iPhones the iPhone."
> > Would somebody please guide me to some linguistically sound discussion of
> > this.
>
> Apart from _Hamlet_?
>
> The OED has an entry on this s.v. _out-_ prep., with some
> discussion.

Some further discussion here (with reference to the earlier OED entry
for _out-_):

http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003430.html


--Ben Zimmer

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