long + past tense

[Jonathan Lighter]

And, hey, in more than one online review of _Red Tails_, the
grad-school-level journalists refer to WWII fighter pilots, while flying,
as "soldiers." Period.

Not "fliers," not "pilots," not "airmen." "Soldiers."

While this was technically true for Army Air Force fliers, it's one of
those technicalities that has almost no bearing on ordinary
discourse. Somebody flying a plane is a "flier."


JL

On Mon, Jul 23, 2012 at 8:16 PM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>wrote:

> After the war too.
>
> JL
>
> On Mon, Jul 23, 2012 at 8:07 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> -----------------------
>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
>> Subject:      Re: long + past tense
>>
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> On Mon, Jul 23, 2012 at 5:54 PM, Benjamin Barrett <gogaku at ix.netcom.com>
>> wrote:
>> > Even given the slow fade of the perfect, this seemed odd to me:
>> >
>> > "Meanwhile, Democrats long gave up the messaging battle on guns." =
>> > (http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/23/politics/obama-romney-guns/index.html)
>>
>> Yet another nail in the coffin of English as those of us born Before
>> The War know it. <sigh!>
>>
>> --
>> -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
>>
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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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