compulsive, OED 2

Laurence Horn laurence.horn at YALE.EDU
Thu Sep 30 01:52:39 UTC 2010


At 9:47 PM -0400 9/29/10, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>Wasn't to hard to spot, was it?
>
>Looks like OED needs another _hermeneut_ cite. Now where did I put mine? (I
>just looked it up this morning.)
>
>Oh, well. GB claims to find 19,500 exx. in a fraction of second.  One guy
>writes in 2002 of putting Derrida "in the position of the Most High
>Hermeneut who holds the master key that unlocks the conundrums of negative
>theology."
>
>JL

I did mention deconstructing...
But if I were Derrida (as I seem not to be, but one never knows, do
one?), I'd rather be reckoned as the Most High Hermenaut.  But I see
that I'd have been beaten to the punch yet again:

"Hermenaut: The Digest of Heady Philosophy for Teens was a philosophy
zine edited and published by Joshua Glenn."
http://zinewiki.com/Hermenaut

LH

>
>On Wed, Sep 29, 2010 at 8:53 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>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: compulsive, OED 2
>>
>>
>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>  At 3:11 PM -0400 9/29/10, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>>  >"Obs."?  Evidently not:
>>  >
>>  >2008 Dennis Ford _The Search for Meaning_ (Berkeley: U. of C. P.) 15:
>>  >Conformity and authoritarianism are thus collective strategies for
>>  relieving
>>  >the anxiety that absolute freedom elicits. We willingly exchange our
>>  anxiety
>>  >and freedom for compulsive activity and the answers provided by others.
>>  >Conformity to the cultural norms...protects us.
>>  >
>>  >Prof. Ford earned his Ph.D. in religion from Syracuse University.
>>  >
>>  >BONUS:
>>  >
>>  >Can you find the error in the OED's entry on "hermeneut"
>>  >
>>  If I am correctly deconstructing the query, is it the fact that the
>>  "hermeneutics" cite (comprising 50% of the record for "hermeneut")
>>  has apparently wandered in from another entry, since the 1972 quote
>>  has nothing to do with the search for an interpreter?
>>
>>  Maybe it could be replaced with one alluding to the fact that because
>>  of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" based dismissals, the U. S. military is in
>>  dire need of a few good Arabic hermeneuts, although hermaphroditic
>>  hermeneuts need not apply.
>>
>>  LH
>>
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>>
>
>
>
>--
>"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>
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