ho = 'eager or gullible enthusiast, usu. female (for); "sucker" (for).'

[Victor Steinbok]

"Variation" sounds too weak and lacks descriptive precision, although it
is clearly not wrong. After all, it involves substitution of a synonym
from another context. I don't know if there is a term for it, but I'll
call it "secondary semantic substitution". What I mean is, if you have a
pair X == Y and a collocation XZ, then someone can "coin" YZ==XZ. I
suppose, this begs for a "primary semantic substitution". OK, suppose
you have X==Y in some context and X is used regularly in another
context. Then Y is substituted for X in that context, where it was
previously unavailable.

I usually use == for either synonym or exact translation. I can also
create a "tertiary semantic substitution". Suppose X~Y are two related
terms from some context (e.g., whore and pimp, with ~ meaning
"related"). Then XZ can produce YZ. The only example that comes close
that I can think of is "X porn" and "X whore". Is there an "X pimp"
variant that's related to "X whore"?

OK, I'm just making it all up... Does any of it make sense?

VS-)

On 4/23/2011 11:23 AM, Ben Zimmer wrote:
> On Fri, Apr 22, 2011 at 11:20 AM, Jonathan Lighter
> <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>  wrote:
>> 2011  http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/153089481 : First I should
>> mention that I am a "ho" for "Letters" compendia. That being said, TE
>> [Lawrence] was a really fascinating dude.
> Isn't this just a variation of the "X whore" snowclonelet, glossed by
> Arnold Zwicky as ‘one who craves X (or something to do with X)
> extravagantly’?
>
> http://arnoldzwicky.wordpress.com/2010/12/21/x-whore/
>
> --bgz
>
> --
> Ben Zimmer

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