"select for"
Jonathan Lighter
wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM
Fri Nov 25 16:36:31 UTC 2011
Hmmm. No "select against" either.
Maybe they're crypto-Creationists at Oxford.
JL
On Fri, Nov 25, 2011 at 10:54 AM, Jim Parish <jparish at siue.edu> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster: Jim Parish <jparish at SIUE.EDU>
> Subject: Re: "select for"
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>> Dig it: OED has no def. for this universally used Darwinian phrase.
>> I've always found it to be rather opaque: why are biological
>> characteristics selected "for" instead of "selected" or "selected for
>> preservation"? Whenever I read it, I feel I'm missing something
>> crucial and subtle.
>>
> I assume that "select for" is used to allow for the reverse, "select
> against". (A hypothetical "select against preservation" seems ungainly,
> somehow.)
>
> Jim Parish
>
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