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

[Jonathan Lighter]

Makes sense to me. Except maybe the very last part.

"Ho" differs connotatively from "whore" - except for people who always say
"ho." But nowadays most of the people who affect "ho" undoubtedly say
"whore" (or, OK, "whaw") on those rare occasions when they're not trying to
sound uberkool.

A "ho" would seem in general to be younger, fresher, more attractive and
vivacious, less poxed up than a "whore."

JL



On Sat, Apr 23, 2011 at 12:58 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:      Re: ho = 'eager or gullible enthusiast,              usu.
> female
>              (for); "sucker" (for).'
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> "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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