let it drag

[Jonathan Lighter]

Worse than you think, because up till now "novels" have generally been in
prose.

But maybe he didn't know the "Rime" was a poem.

Oh, but wait. The title...

Naaah. Just a book about a guy who froze to death.

(Or is it just a *story* about that guy? Mm, better play safe with "novel.")


JL

On Sun, May 8, 2011 at 7:58 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>wrote:

> ---------------------- 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: let it drag
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> At 7:30 PM -0400 5/8/11, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
> >So..."let the bottom of the race car drag!" means what then?  Sounds like
> a
> >prescription for failure.
> >
> >JL
>
> Better than letting the top side drag, or the left side.
>
> Speaking of perhaps not getting the whole story, I had assigned
> "albatross" as one of the words for which my Words students were
> supposed to provide histories (etymology, lexical and phonological
> shifts, semantic changes).  One of them correctly went through the
> appropriate stages (Arabic al-gattuz, Spanish, Portuguese "alcatraz",
> influence from Latin "albus", etc.) and then touched on the
> metaphorical extension from the seabird itself to a good luck symbol
> to a token of ill-fortune all of which can be attributed to
> 'Coleridge's 1936 novel "Rime of the Ancient Mariner".'  Now getting
> the date slightly (well, 138 years) off may be attributable to Google
> Books, but calling the Rime a "novel" seems to be another instance of
> the generalized meaning we've been contemplating (as a potential
> SOTA).
>
> LH
>
> >On Sun, May 8, 2011 at 7:13 PM, Dan Goncharoff <thegonch at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >
> >>  ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> >>  -----------------------
> >>  Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> >>  Poster:       Dan Goncharoff <thegonch at GMAIL.COM>
> >>  Subject:      Re: let it drag
> >>
> >>
>
> >>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >>
> >>  Probably the bottom of the race car itself.
> >>  DanG
> >>
> >>  On Sat, May 7, 2011 at 12:09 PM, Jonathan Lighter
> >>  <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>   > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> >>  -----------------------
> >>  > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> >>  > Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> >>  > Subject:      let it drag
> >>  >
> >>
>
> >>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >>  >
> >>  > From a TV commercial for NASCAR:
> >>  >
> >>  > "No holds barred - and let the rough side drag!!"
> >>  >
> >>  > Jesse Winchester released his LP _Let the Rough Side Drag_ in 1976,
> as if
> >>  > that explains anything.
> >>  >
> >>  > What rough side?
> >>  >
> >>  > JL
> >>  > --
> >>  > "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the
> >>  truth."
> >>  >
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> >
> >
> >--
> >"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the
> truth."
> >
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--
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

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