"Dead man's float" (and not in OED)

Joel S. Berson Berson at ATT.NET
Mon Jun 2 15:50:32 UTC 2014


At 6/1/2014 07:47 PM, David Barnhart wrote:
>I first heard _dead-man's float_ in the late 1940's (probably 1948 or so.
>My recollection is that it was face-down in the water so it didn't matter if
>you breathed or not.  You were supposedly dead.  It's the position
>instructors liked to start out young inexperienced swimmers (such as
>myself).

It seems now to be called the "survival float", so I assume one must
breathe once in a while.

Joel

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



More information about the Ads-l mailing list