new use for "firewall"

[Victor Steinbok]

With all due respect to the earlier discovery, this one appears to be
different. The Rove/Liasson/Glenn usage was the entire state as a
firewall blocking another candidate's path to nomination. In this case,
they are building a firewall to prevent another candidate from winning
the state. The former likely had been derived from the physical
firewall, but the new one appears to have roots in the electronic world.

     VS-)

On 1/12/2012 1:48 PM, Ben Zimmer wrote:
> On Thu, Jan 12, 2012 at 1:37 PM, Victor Steinbok wrote:
>> So it goes from physical to electronic (digital communications) to
>> metaphorical.
>>
>> http://goo.gl/eL45K
>>> *His Super PAC is erecting a firewall in South Carolina. [...]
> Ah, the old South Carolina firewall. See Safire, citing me, on John
> Glenn's firewall in SC in 1984:
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/24/magazine/24wwlnSafire-t.html
>
> --bgz

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