fellow

[Joel S. Berson]

Doesn't bother me.  A "fellow writer" is someone else also in the
guild of writers (OED 2: "Also, one united with another in a covenant
for common ends".  Perhaps most on the mark, OED 6. "One of a company
or party whose interests are common; a member.")  And even more "a
fellow writer" since they are married (OED 4a. "Of a person: The
consort, spouse, husband or wife.") and collaborating on a screen play.

Joel

At 4/4/2011 03:11 PM, Dan Goncharoff wrote:
>What exactly is a "fellow writer"? Just another way of saying "another
>writer"?
>
>I think I expect a tighter connection between fellows than simply following
>the same line of work. Perhaps even membership in some professional
>organization would satisfy this, but I think there is a need for some shared
>experience.
>
>DanG
>
>On Mon, Apr 4, 2011 at 2:16 PM, Victor Steinbok <aardvark66 at gmail.com>wrote:
>
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> > -----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       Victor Steinbok <aardvark66 at GMAIL.COM>
> > Subject:      fellow
> >
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > There is something interesting going on here, but, of course, I can't
> > put my finger on it. Here's a line from E&P story on Cameron receiving
> > the Columnist of the Year award.
> >
> > http://goo.gl/k11VW
> > > Cameron and his fellow writer, Cathryn Michon, were married Nov. 27,
> > > 2010, in Pacific Palisades, Calif. They spent a "working honeymoon"
> > > collaborating on the screenplay for the movie.
> >
> > This seems to be a perfectly ordinary passage, but "his fellow writer"
> > jumped at me. I would have written "a fellow writer", and likely would
> > have corrected it the same way as an editor or a grader. But I could not
> > figure out why it bothered me so much. There is some overspecificity
> > here, but should it trigger a strong reaction?
> >
> > I did a quick Google search for "his fellow". There is no way to analyze
> > all the hits (35M+), but I scanned the first 150 or so and there /was/ a
> > pattern. Save for one biblical passage ("his fellow servant"), /every
> > single hit/ showed this combination modifying a plural. So it's "his
> > fellow soldiers", "his fellow Democrats", etc. Not one singular noun.
> >
> > It would be an overstatement that this is the whole story. Adding common
> > singular nouns to "his fellow" (soldier, writer, robot, student) gets
> > quite a few hits, although it's two orders of magnitude lower and
> > includes both singular and plural versions (unlike GB, the main Google
> > engine knows that they are related). But, the point is, there are cases
> > of "his fellow" with singular nouns. They are just not showing up near
> > the top of Google search.
> >
> > Are there any usage notes on this? Any related/relevant observations? Or
> > am I just nitpicking again?
> >
> >     VS-)
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
>
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