"coincidental": another reversal?

Dan Goncharoff thegonch at GMAIL.COM
Tue Dec 20 01:12:35 UTC 2011


Perhaps she was thinking of the "simultaneous" meaning of coincidental, and
not the "accidental" meaning.
DanG


On Mon, Dec 19, 2011 at 7:30 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      "coincidental": another reversal?
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Tonight on ABC's World News, the (almost?) always carefully-spoken
> Christiane Amanpour explained that the already "rattling nerves" in the
> wake of Kim Jong Il's death were heightened when "The Pentagon confirmed
> that North Korea test-fired two short-range missiles, although they don't
> believe that there was anything coincidental about that--not deliberately
> timed with this death."  She must have meant that the timing *was* (what
> used to be called) entirely coincidental.  Not sure if this reflects an
> unusual slip by Amanpour or an even more unusual meaning shift.
>
> LH
>
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