repropriate

[ADSGarson O'Toole]

Given the context repropriate might be a blend from two or more of these words:

propagate, procreate, reproduce

Less likely contributors to the blend: parturitate, progenerate.

On Mon, Oct 22, 2012 at 8:28 PM, Arnold Zwicky <zwicky at stanford.edu> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Arnold Zwicky <zwicky at STANFORD.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: repropriate
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Oct 22, 2012, at 4:44 PM, "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET> wrote:
>
>> At 10/22/2012 06:08 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>>>
>>> A fellow opposed to gay marriage argued in All Things Considered a few
>>> minutes back that if you're married to somebody of the same sex, "How can
>>> you repropriate?"
>>>
>>> I don't know. Frankly, I just don't know.
>>
>> You make the property that you would want back part of the
>> pre-nuptial agreement.
>
> it hasn't been a good day for me, and as sometimes happens with these wrong-word examples i can't figure out what the speaker was aiming (unsuccessfully) at.  can someone help me out of the fog?
>
> arnold

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