In lieu of

[Neal Whitman]

As I tweeted on Dec. 15:

"'In lieu of' is not a fancy way of saying 'in view of'. It means 'in place
of/instead of', from Fr. 'lieu' meaning 'place'. So cut it out!"

I did that after having a conversation with someone who consistently did
that. It seems that if you hear it once from someone, you hear it at least
twice more, in the same conversation.

Neal

----- Original Message -----
From: "Laurence Horn" <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Sent: Saturday, January 01, 2011 11:25 PM
Subject: Re: Antedating of "Poker" (Card Game)


> ---------------------- Information from the mail
> header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: Antedating of "Poker" (Card Game)
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> At 9:48 PM -0500 1/1/11, Shapiro, Fred wrote:
>>poker, n.4 (OED 1836)
>>
>>1832 _The Globe_ (Washington, D.C.) 3 Sept. 2/5 (19th Century U.S.
>>Newspapers)  Who is notorious for his skill and dexterity at _Lieu_,
>>_poker_ and _Kentucky Brag?_ ... _Centre County (Pa.) Democrat._
>>
>>Fred Shapiro
>>
> Nice to know; and it looks like the readers would be expected to know
> what poker is, so it can probably be pushed back further.  Speaking
> of "Lieu", I don't know the eponymous card game, but I just heard a
> radio sports talk host refer to considering something "in lieu of"
> something else, where the intended meaning was clearly "in light of".
> Not exactly an eggcorn, more of a malapropism, and probably not
> unique to him--maybe the thought is that "lieu" is French for "light".
>
> LH
>
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