on reversed "substitute" (intransitive version)

[Jonathan Lighter]

The point of my post, assuming it needed one, was that the partially
confounding innovation appears to be normal now, at least in many contexts,
for the sort of youngish speaker and writer who, as I quaintly put it,
should know better.

Formally it's a blend, but semantically there is still some 'splainin' (as
they say affectedly on Fox and CNN) to do.  (38,000 raw Google hits.)

But that's another story.

JL


On Mon, Mar 4, 2013 at 12:09 PM, Cohen, Gerald Leonard <gcohen at mst.edu>wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Cohen, Gerald Leonard" <gcohen at MST.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: on reversed "substitute" (intransitive version)
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> This is merely a blend ("substitute for" + "replace with"), aided by the
> partial synonymity of "substitute" and "replace".
>
> Gerald Cohen
> ________________________________________
> Original message from Jonathan Lighter, Monday, March 04, 2013 6:33 AM
>
> I couldn't help noticing and cringing when a twentysomething fitness guru
> on CNN yesterday said the "you can substitute butter with olive oil" and
> some other X with another Y.
>
> Clearly =  "replace."
>
> Another ex. of the same phrase from 2011:
>
> http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/health/2011/12/11/avoiding-holiday-blues-i=
> t-can-affect-your-heart/#ixzz2MZdCT6p2
>
> "Substitute butter with olive oil: A study from the American Journal of
> Clinical Nutrition shows that subjects limited lipid and insulin responses
> when eating a meal high in mono-saturated fats (olive oil) instead of a
> meal high in saturated fat (butter)."
>
> The context suggests that the journalist should, by the standards of the
> superannuated, know better.
>
> JL
>
> On Sun, Aug 28, 2011 at 4:51 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu
> >wrot=
> e:
>
> > ---------------------- 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: on reversed "substitute" (intransitive version)
> >
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------=
> ------
> >
> > On Aug 28, 2011, at 4:08 PM, Dan Goncharoff wrote:
> >
> > > Clear but not transparent? A distinction I cannot as yet fathom.
> > > DanG
> > >
> > >
> > ?
> > I wasn't trying to distinguish "clear" and "transparent", but rather what
> > was/would have been transparent (or clear) to me on hearing/reading it
> an=
> d
> > what must have clearly been intended by the speaker/writer, given the
> > context.  What was not transparent to me is that "When you substitute
> him=
> "
> > could really mean "When you take him out and put in someone else" (as
> > opposed to "When you put him in and take out someone else").  What is
> cle=
> ar
> > is that that's what the writer/speaker intended to convey, given the
> > overall context.
> >
> > This is a fact about the difference between the two dialects.  Before I
> > became familiar with the British use of "knock up", if I had come across
> =
> a
> > female character in a movie or book saying to her male counterpart
> "Pleas=
> e
> > knock me up in the morning" it would not have been transparent to me that
> > she meant 'please awaken me in the morning by knocking', yet clearly,
> > that's what she would have meant (especially if she had uttered it with a
> > British accent).  Or perhaps a more natural example:  the first time I
> ca=
> me
> > across someone saying something like "If she was wearing her seatbelt she
> > may have survived the accident", I could only interpret it as suggesting
> > that the speaker was agnostic as to the subject's survival; to express
> th=
> e
> > counterfactual, presupposing that she didn't survive, I would have
> expect=
> ed
> > "=85she might have survived the accident".  But now I recognize that for
> =
> the
> > "new" dialect (don't know how new it actually is), "may" can be used to
> > express this counterfactual !
> >  or subjunctive meaning as well.
> >
> > Hope that's clearer and/or more transparent.
> >
> > LH
> > >
> > > On Fri, Aug 26, 2011 at 6:38 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu
> >
> > wrote:
> > >
> > >>
> > >> Reminds me; the original from Cris Carter was actually "When you
> > substitute him", not "if".  Same difference as they say (but I usually
> > don't).  For me, these are not at all transparent; I only process them as
> > "If/When you substitute him (for someone else)", not "If/When you
> > substitute (someone else for) him", although clearly it's the latter that
> > was intended.
> > >>
> > >> LH
> > >>
> > >
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>
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