"illiterate"

[Jonathan Lighter]

Shouldn't that be "able to read a subway map"?

Or how about "just literate enough to read the ads in a subway car"?

JL

On Fri, Oct 29, 2010 at 11:13 AM, Paul Frank <paulfrank at post.harvard.edu>wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Paul Frank <paulfrank at POST.HARVARD.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: "illiterate"
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Fri, Oct 29, 2010 at 5:00 PM, Arnold Zwicky <zwicky at stanford.edu>
> wrote:
>
> > a friend tried to cheer me up (some health woes again) by offering the
> following on Facebook:
> >
> > Â >This might cheer you up. I just saw it on a forum:
> > Â >"I'm not sure I understand. Could you illiterate?"
> >
> > presumably "illuminate" was the target. so it's some kind of malapropism,
> but could be either a CM (classical malapropism) or an FC (Fay-Cutler) type.
> >
> > arnold
>
> Maybe the poster meant, "I'm subliterate. Could you dumb it down
> enough for me to understand what you mean?" Maybe not.
>
> Incidentally, I don't see "subliterate" in my paper edition of the
> OED2 and, being one of the great unwashed, I can't afford an online
> subscription. But the One-Look Dictionary has links to seven
> dictionary definitions of "subliterate," including this most excellent
> one from the Urban Dictionary: "1. To be completely clueless on how to
> using the subway or other means of public tranportation; 2. To be
> unable to read a subway map."
>
> Paul
>
> Paul Frank
> Translator
> Chinese, German, French, Italian > English
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> paulfrank at bfs.admin.ch
> paulfrank at post.harvard.edu
>
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