Expressions with Number Variation (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Jonathan Lighter]

That's the $64 (,000) question.

JL

On Thu, Sep 13, 2012 at 5:04 PM, Mullins, Bill AMRDEC <
Bill.Mullins at us.army.mil> wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Mullins, Bill AMRDEC" <Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL>
> Subject:      Re: Expressions with Number Variation (UNCLASSIFIED)
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> Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
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> Eighteen skidoo?
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On
> Behalf Of
> > Shapiro, Fred
> > Sent: Thursday, September 13, 2012 4:00 PM
> > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> > Subject: Expressions with Number Variation
> >
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> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       "Shapiro, Fred" <fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU>
> > Subject:      Expressions with Number Variation
> >
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> ------
> > -
> >
> > In connection with the discovery that the original formulation of "the
> whole
> > nine yards" may well have been "the whole six yards," Dave Wilton has
> pointed
> > out that "there are many examples of phrases with numbers that went
> through
> > multiple versions with different numerical values before settling on
> the one
> > that became canonical (e.g., 'cloud nine')."  Can Dave or anyone else
> give me
> > other examples of this kind of number variation?
> >
> > Fred Shapiro
> >
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> Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
> Caveats: NONE
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