"Let me play _an evil's advocate_." [NT]

[Wilson Gray]

On Fri, Sep 2, 2011 at 9:40 AM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:
> Perhaps an orthographically rather than phonologically motivated reanalysis, as in (I assume) chaise longue > chaise lounge?

My WAG is that he read it somewhere and internalized the meaning. But,
by the time that he had occasion to throw into  a post, he was able to
recall only the string, _…-evil's advocate_ from the printed page.
WTF? That's close enough for government work. So, he went with it.

I don't think that he could have made this particular  kind of
reanalysis, had he actually *heard* the expression. Naturally,

Youneverknow.

--
-Wilson
-----
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

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