Diane Sawyer hedging her bets

[Tom Zurinskas]

Seems like it would NOT be hard to "underestimate" what it would be like to eject at 600 mph from a jet at night and land in enemy territory.  It would be hard to overestimate but not underestimate.  Better just to say "it would be hard to imagine - - the heart pounding moments..." leaving out the under...over...  Quit the yapping.
 
It was rewarding to see that the folks at the parachute site were friendly and halpful.  The owner of the land was given a helmut for his trouble and was grateful even though wounded by protective bombing.  Amazing.  They were happy to see us.
 
The rescue planes were Ospreys,  They were controversial in development and expensive.  They fly like twin turboprops but both engines tilt  up to work like helicopter blades for vertical landings and takeoffs.   

Tom Zurinskas, Conn 20 yrs, then Tenn 3, NJ 33, now FL 9.
The FREE English-based phonetic converters, URL and text , are at truespel.com


 
 





 
> Date: Tue, 22 Mar 2011 22:18:50 -0400
> From: bgzimmer at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU
> Subject: Re: Diane Sawyer hedging her bets
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> 
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster: Ben Zimmer <bgzimmer at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU>
> Subject: Re: Diane Sawyer hedging her bets
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> On Tue, Mar 22, 2011 at 9:54 PM, Joel S. Berson wrote:
> >
> > At 3/22/2011 07:31 PM, Laurence Horn wrote:
> > >Another reversal:
> > >
> > >We've discussed, as has Language Log at various intervals, the
> > >problems in sorting out "can't underestimate" and its relatives.
> > >Here's Diane Sawyer on tonight's episode of ABC World News Tonight on
> > >the lead story:
> > >
> > >"It would be hard to imagine, or underestimate [pause]..., or
> > >overestimate, what it must have been like" when those two American
> > >airmen were forced to bail out and land in Libya.
> >
> > It wasn't a very long pause, however, and I thought it might equally
> > well have been a tongue slip as a brain slip.
> 
> You can find it at 6:55 in the video here: http://abcn.ws/gWrjZT
> 
> --bgz
> 
> --
> Ben Zimmer
> http://benzimmer.com/
> 
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