"war with words" aka "paper war"?

[Laurence Horn]

On Feb 4, 2014, at 7:19 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:

> OED has "war of words" lexicalized since 1725.
>
> Google Books has "war with words" (as a synonym rather than a chance
> collocation) only very, very rarely.
>

And presumably even more rarely if we eliminate possible references to those who, like Beckett, really were at war with words (i.e. against them).  Or perhaps that counts as a chance collocation, if it occurs at all.

LH
>
>
> On Tue, Feb 4, 2014 at 9:38 AM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> -----------------------
>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
>> Subject:      Re: "war with words" aka "paper war"?
>>
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> 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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>>
>>
>>
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>> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
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>
>
>
> --
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>
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