Small and Little

[Laurence Horn]

At 5:22 PM +0000 6/17/10, ronbutters at aol.com wrote:
>Perhaps Randy Newman was Swedish, as was my uncle, Otto Thorson. He
>knew a few brief, short, small Swedish Lutheran prayers.
>
>The song may advocate suicide more than executions.

In light of your next observation, this would count as a Hobbesian
[sic] choice.

LH

>  It may be concerned with people who are short in the sense of nasty
>and brutish.



>------Original Message------
>From: Laurence Horn
>Subject: Re: [ADS-L] Small and Little
>Sent: Jun 17, 2010 12:31 PM
>
>At 8:59 AM -0700 6/17/10, Norm Jensen wrote:
>  >>---------------------- Information from the mail header
>  >>Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>>Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
>>>Subject:      Re: Small and Little
>>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>
>>>At 3:34 PM +0000 6/17/10, ronbutters at aol.com wrote:
>>>>It seems to me that, as second language "imperfections" go, this one
>>>>is little and tiny. His English is definitely better than my Swedish.
>>>>
>>>>And maybe he was just attributing to BP the point of view expressed
>>>>in the Billy Joel song:
>>>
>>>Wasn't that Randy Newman?
>>>
>>Randy Newman sang about Short People.
>>
>To be sure, but my point was that Ron, in referring to "the point of
>view expressed in the Billy Joel song: small people got no reason to
>live" was in fact thinking of the Randy Newman song.  As far as I
>know, Billy Joel never wrote or sang in opposition to capital
>punishment for small, short, or little people, as the case may be.
>
>LH

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