travesty

[Rick Barr]

I hope I'm not stating the obvious here, but it would seem that the word
travesty in these cases has absorbed the negative connotations of the very
frequent phrase "travesty of justice." People seem to clip the final two
words and retain the negative sense of the expression as a whole.

-- Rick


On Wed, Jun 2, 2010 at 10:08 PM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      travesty
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Earlier today the President of Plaquemines Parish described the gushing oil
> as "a tragedy and a travesty."  Later, on the History Channel's series
> _America: The Story of Us_, Donald Trump forcefully described the 9/11
> terrorist attacks as "a travesty."
>
> Roughly, "an outrageous happening."
>
> I've heard it a number of times before, but I can't say when.
>
> JL
>
> --
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>
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