tiny, perfect

James Harbeck jharbeck at SYMPATICO.CA
Tue Jan 21 04:41:21 UTC 2014


On 2014-01-20, at 11:28 PM, Ben Zimmer wrote:
>> James, as a Torontonian you're no doubt familiar with David Crombie,
> Toronto's "tiny, perfect mayor" from the 1970s. Was that a possible
> vector, at least north of the border?

I'm sure that must have had some big effect in the Toronto area, but when it landed on him it came from somewhere else, and people outside of Toronto are pretty oblivious to the Crombie descriptor (I grew up in Alberta and knew nothing of it until I moved to Toronto). I'm sure there must be much more to it… but so far it seems, like Topsy, to have just growed.

Thanks,
James Harbeck.

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org



More information about the Ads-l mailing list