"NOT cheap imitations, but genuine replicas!" [NT]

[Dan Goncharoff]

The important word here is not "replica" or "imitation", but "spam",
which indicates one cannot trust whatever the vendor says. There is a
clear distinction between "replica" and "imitation"; you have simply
made a judgment that the distinction won't be adhered to by this vendor.

DanG

On 5/13/2010 4:53 PM, Wilson Gray wrote:
> Time, gentlemen, please! Under what circumstances would Rolex be
> motivated to license its name (and reputation!) to a watch that's
> *not* a Rolex? Remember the way that Apple freaked when Psystar made
> computers that used the Mac OS, without making any claim whatsoever
> that there was any kind of connection between its product and any
> Apple product? And can anyone possibly believe that a *replica* spam
> Rolex will be better in some manner than an *imitation* spam Rolex? Do
> you guys own the Brooklyn Bridge?!
>
> Spam!!!
>
> -Wilson
>
> On Thu, May 13, 2010 at 4:25 PM, Dan Goncharoff<thegonch at gmail.com>  wrote:
>
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
>> Sender:       American Dialect Society<ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       Dan Goncharoff<thegonch at GMAIL.COM>
>> Subject:      Re: "NOT cheap imitations, but genuine replicas!" [NT]
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> This is just my gut talking, but I would expect an imitation to look
>> like the original, but not necessarily function at the same level of
>> quality, or even at all, while a replica would aim to function similarly
>> to the original.
>>
>> DanG
>>
>> On 5/13/2010 2:45 PM, Laurence Horn 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: "NOT cheap imitations, but genuine replicas!" [NT]
>>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>
>>> At 2:31 PM -0400 5/13/10, Wilson Gray wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>> I should have made clear that I was quoting a spam ad for "Rolex"
>>>> watches, in which the distinction, "imitation" vs. "replica," is
>>>> laughably meaningless. What distinguishes between an "imitation" of a
>>>> Rolex and a "replica" of a Rolex?
>>>>
>>>>
>>> Price.  The latter is more costly.
>>> Besides "genuine replica" (less obviously oxymoronic than "genuine
>>> imitation"), there's also "exact replica", while "exact imitation"
>>> seems less likely to me.  Contrarily, "pale imitation" seems more
>>> natural than "pale replica".
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>> In neither case is the watch a
>>>> genuine Rolex. A difference that makes no difference is no difference.
>>>>
>>>>
>>> The difference in the naturalness of these collocations, if my
>>> judgments aren't entirely idiosyncratic, suggests that this *is* a
>>> difference that makes a difference and thus isn't no difference.
>>>
>>> LH
>>>
>>> ------------------------------------------------------------
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>>>
>>>
>>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>
>>
>
>
>

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