Another one bites the dust.

[Laurence Horn]

At 1:42 AM -0400 3/15/11, Wilson Gray wrote:
>"If you have a vulva, a clitoris, a vagina, and _a labia_ ...
>
>--
>-Wilson

Gender assimilation; the pressure of those two feminine singulars was
just too strong for the nearby neuter.

Alternate hypothesis, equally implausible:  the "a" in labia is a
reanalyzed definite article, as in the local (New Haven) apizza
[@'bits] < la pizza.

LH

>-----
>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
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org