WOTY

[Geoffrey Nunberg]

Just so. Well, or except that it wasn't everyone, it was me. And it wasn't silence, but obtuse inattention. You gotta get up pretty early in the millennium to scoop LH.

Geoff


> as observed upthread, although I concluded everyone must have decided to pass it by in dignified silence:
> ==============================
>         From:   Laurence Horn <
>         Subject:        Re: WOTY
>         Date:   October 11, 2011 7:49:15 PM EDT
>         To:     American Dialect Society <
>
> >
>
> ..and a reclaimed and scrubbed down ex-sexual euphemism to boot!  (Although I confess I did get a frisson when I first saw those "Occupy Wall Street" posters…)
>
> LH
>
> On Oct 11, 2011, at 7:35 PM, Victor Steinbok wrote:
>
> > Really? Why not just "occupy"--we now have "Occupy Wall Street" (OWS),
> > "Occupy [city]", "Occupy Capitol", and, last, but not least (obviously),
> > "Occupy Everything". And it's got perfect timing for WOTY voting.
> >
> >   VS-)
>
> ===============================
>
>
> On Oct 15, 2011, at 1:32 AM, Geoffrey Nunberg wrote:
>
> > This is pretty definitive, Ben. The only thing I would add -- though perhaps not on public radio -- is that inasmuch as the OED notes that 'occupy' was used up to the 18th c. to mean "To have sexual intercourse or relations with," it seems fair to conclude that Dr. Johnson would have heard "Occupy Wall Street" as a euphemistic way of saying "Fuck 'em."
> >
> > Geoff
>
>
> http://www.americandialect.org
>

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