"lender/borrower" goes the way of "ancestor/descendant"?

[Wilson Gray]

Judging by what I hear on shows like "Judge Mathis," _borrow_ for both
"loan/lend" and "borrow" is commonplace, especially in BE, e.g.

I borrowed him $500.
He borrowed me $500.

You really need to have context in order to be of what happened.
Occasionally, a judge will say, "You mean, you *loaned* him $500/he
*loaned* you $500. But not often, since context always provides the
proper reading.

By sheerest coincidence, a defendant on today's show, a young white
man, surnamed "Page," from Saint Louis, bragged that his _descendants_
had accompanied Lewis & Clark and that one of his direct _descendants_
was the man after whom Page Avenue in Saint Louis was named. That
really caught my attention. That's the street that I grew up on!

Quelle coincidence!

However, it's vanishingly rare for "guests" on trash-TV shows to speak
of any lineage beyond baby daddy / baby mama.

--
-Wilson
–––
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"––a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
–Mark Twain


On Fri, Feb 4, 2011 at 9:43 PM, Herb Stahlke <hfwstahlke at gmail.com> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender: Â  Â  Â  American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster: Â  Â  Â  Herb Stahlke <hfwstahlke at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject: Â  Â  Â "lender/borrower" goes the way of "ancestor/descendant"?
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> A talking head on MSNBC's Dylan Ratigan show this afternoon was
> talking about the failure of foreclosure help and used "borrower"
> three times in the sense of "mortgage banker" or "lender." Â Once would
> have been a slip, but three times makes me wonder.
>
> Herb
>
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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

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