repropriate

[ADSGarson O'Toole]

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?"

The following suggestions have been made for the stew:
reproduce, replicate, reappropriate, propagate, procreate,
Obscure: parturitate, progenerate.

Also thoughts of the taboo word "copulate" might have derailed the
utterance. Or is that hypothesis too Freudian?

On Tue, Oct 23, 2012 at 12:23 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: repropriate
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Oct 23, 2012, at 12:12 PM, Joel S. Berson wrote:
>
>> One possibility is that the tongue started with "reproduce" and
>> switched in midstream to "propagate".
>>
>> Joel
>
> And, although it's not contextually appropriate, the verb "reappropriate" may well have been part of the stew.
>
> LH
>
>>
>> At 10/22/2012 08:55 PM, Arnold Zwicky wrote:
>>> On Oct 22, 2012, at 5:46 PM, "ADSGarson O'Toole"
>>> <adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
>>>
>>> > 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.
>>>
>>> (Jon Lighter proposes: reproduce.  this is likely to be the target,
>>> since it's the verb that turns up again and again in discussions of
>>> same-sex marriage.  it was being blocked for me by "reciprocate:",
>>> which is surely irrelevant.) (Joel Berson now adds: replicate.)
>>>
>>> ah, thanks to Jon, Garson, and Joel.
>>>
>>> arnold
>>>
>>> >>>> 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?"
>>>
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>>
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