"basket house"

[Laurence Horn]

On Jun 7, 2012, at 9:20 AM, Amy West wrote:

> On 6/7/12 12:01 AM, Automatic digest processor wrote:
>> Date:    Wed, 6 Jun 2012 22:50:17 -0400
>> From:    Wilson Gray<hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
>> Subject: Re: "basket house"
>>
>> On Wed, Jun 6, 2012 at 3:41 PM, Ben Zimmer
>> <bgzimmer at babel.ling.upenn.edu>  wrote:
>>> >  the odd Briticism "overshoes"
>> that's even in BE and, perhaps, other forms of Southern English. But,
>> pf course, the headline-writer ought to have used standard_rubbers_.
>> Not everyone is familiar with regional and other non-standard terms:
>>
>> _Trying the Economic Rubbers on Different Feet_
> As always, I'm a "me-too": both American parents -- one from each coast
> -- called 'em "overshoes" and I still have a pair of overshoes. Doesn't
> strike me as a Britishism, and 'tain't labeled as such in MWC11.
> "Galoshes" isn't labeled either (which is the older term,
> interestingly). Now that I think of it, I think my mother (Bostonian)
> favored "galoshes" over "overshoes." She would use "overshoes" when I
> gave her a funny look about "galoshes."
>
> ---Amy West
>
And then "Trying the Economic Rubbers" sounds more like it involves taking prophylactic measures; maybe that would have helped with the recent insolvency/foreclosure explosion.

LH

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