"war with words" aka "paper war"?

[Jonathan Lighter]

It may mean nothing, but Google Books Ngram Viewer reveals that "mofo" hit
huge peaks around 1800, 1840, and 1920. And "goofy" had a minor peak around
1800 as well.

JL


On Tue, Feb 4, 2014 at 8:53 AM, Amy West <medievalist at w-sts.com> wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Amy West <medievalist at W-STS.COM>
> Subject:      Re: "war with words" aka "paper war"?
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On 2/4/14 12:00 AM, Automatic digest processor wrote:
> > Date:    Mon, 3 Feb 2014 09:38:36 -0500
> > From:    Jonathan Lighter<wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> > Subject: Re: "war with words" aka "paper war"?
> >
> > What makes it noteworthy is that the established idiom has apparently
> > become opaque to some people who are educated enough to write news copy
> for
> > a giant corporation.
> >
> > What's more, had the writer been familiar with "war of words," he'd
> > certainly have used it to avoid having two "withs" in the space of three
> > words.
> >
> > JL
> Not necessarily. The choice of that first "with" may have been
> influenced by thinking ahead to that second "with." To Google Ngrams,
> Lightman?
>
> ---Amy West
>
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