cocktail = deadly mixture

[Jonathan Lighter]

Actually, _d-second_ could be The Word Of The Year. Who knows?

What's it mean?

BTW, the second time around I heard "cocktail for catastrophe." (Note
early hour of my previous post.)  More than forty raw Googlits back to
2007.  A Google Books snippet shows "...for disaster" in Parliament as far
back as 1982 (apparently) in a nonmaterial application.

Proof that alliteration is slow to evolve.

JL

On Thu, May 13, 2010 at 7:33 AM, Paul Frank <paulfrank at post.harvard.edu>wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Paul Frank <paulfrank at POST.HARVARD.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: cocktail = deadly mixture
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I take it that we're all supposed to top-post. For what it's worth
> (not much), the phrase "cocktail for disaster" was once used in a
> British parliamentary debate in 1990:
>
> <
> http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm198990/cmhansrd/1990-03-09/Debate-2.html#Debate-2_spnew15
> >
>
> What I love about the internets is that even regular Joe Blows like me
> get to make contributions to scholarship, not matter how insignificant
> and ephemeral. I get to be famous for a d-second, to coin a word, the
> time it takes you hit the delete key and forget this post.
>
> Paul
>
> Paul Frank
> Translator
> German, French, Chinese > English
> Rue du Midi 1, Aigle, Switzerland
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> paulfrank at post.harvard.edu
>
>
>
> On 13 May 2010 13:13, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> > Sender: Â  Â  Â  American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster: Â  Â  Â  Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> > Subject: Â  Â  Â cocktail = deadly mixture
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > For years TV and radio news have liked to use the word  _cocktail_ as
> the
> > default metaphor for almost any kind of
> > mixture, especially if threatening.
> >
> > CNN had provided an unusually good ex. this morning. Â As an undersea
> video
> > showed clouds of oil and natural gas belching forth from the severed BP
> > pipeline, the combination was described as "a cocktail for disaster."
> >
> > Note the syntactical blend with "recipe for disaster."
> >
> > JL
>
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