"Shaven"

[Laurence Horn]

On Jun 25, 2012, at 2:10 PM, Laurence Horn wrote:

> 
> On Jun 25, 2012, at 1:34 PM, Joel S. Berson wrote:
> 
>> At 6/25/2012 10:52 AM, Laurence Horn wrote:
>>> Maybe so, but there are more than a few hits for "clean shavin'"
>>> (with or without apostrophe), suggesting a reanalysis from a perhaps
>>> moribund perfect participle.
>> 
>> But are these "the clean shavin' Gilette Atra", or similar?
>> 
>> Joel
> 
> No, they seem to describe the patient rather than the agent or instrument.  We have clean shavin men, a clean shavin look, clean shavin Dad, and so on.  And while there are 19,000+ hits for "clean shaving razor", there's only 1 hit for "clean shavin razor".  
> 
> LH
> 

P.S.  To show the contrast more dramatically, compare these g-hit results:

clean shaving razor:   19,100
clean shavin razor:             1

clean shaving men:       5.430
clean shavin men:     132,000

clean shaving women:       10
clean shavin women:   84,000

LH
     

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