novel

[Dan Goncharoff]

Is it possible the reference to 'combat stories' is meant to start a new
list?
DanG


On Fri, Dec 2, 2011 at 9:36 AM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: novel
>
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>
> It may be a stretch, but here is a 1965 use of "novel" which
> functionally, if perhaps inadvertently, includes a collection of short
> stories and nonfiction works as well. The first four titles are
> fiction. The rest aren't. There is no transition between categories:
>
> 1965 _L.A. Times_ (Oct. 24) B30 [ProQuest]: [Headline] Bombarded With
> War Novels. ...If you enjoy novels about the war, there are a number
> of new titles available: THE TRAITOR by William L. Shirer...THE BIG
> WAR by Anton Myrer...UP FROM THE BEACH by George Barr...HELLBENT FOR
> GLORY by William Chamberlain...Combat stories of World War II and
> Korea...THE FRIENDLY DEAD by T. Grady Gallant...An excellent account
> of the Marines at Iwo Jima...THE TIRPITZ AND THE BATTLE FOR THE NORTH
> ATLANTIC by David Woodward...PACEM IN TERRIS... [by] Pope John XXIII.
>
> The headline writer might easily have written "book" over "novel" and
> even saved a space in doing so.
>
> This is the sort of case that might easily be dismissed as some sort
> of careless error, and perhaps that's all that it is, but on such
> errors semantic change often depends.
>
> JL
>
> --
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
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