"measuring the drapes"
Ben Zimmer
bgzimmer at GMAIL.COM
Wed Jun 11 13:54:59 UTC 2014
On Wed, Jun 11, 2014 at 8:13 AM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>
> Now fully lexicalized.
>
> Gloria Borger on CNN: "Measuring the drapes is never a good political
> strategy."
>
> No explanatory antecedent, no ref. to where the "drapes" might be.
I looked into political drape-measuring back in '08:
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=763
http://www.vocabulary.com/articles/wordroutes/drapes-curtains-and-an-old-political-standby/
--bgz
--
Ben Zimmer
http://benzimmer.com/
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