is "trade" the new "substitute"?

[Randy Alexander]

I'm not sure how these two could be different:

a. I'll trade you X for Y.
b. I'll trade you Y for X.

Or even:

a. I'll trade you this for that.
b. I'll trade you that for this.

In either case X and Y switched places.
On Mar 25, 2014 7:49 PM, "Laurence Horn" <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      is "trade" the new "substitute"?
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Has anyone encountered reversed "trade x for y" being used in a context in
> which it's y that's acquired and x that's given up?  We've discussed (every
> few months) the inverse "substitute", as in
>
> Traditional moussaka is done with eggplant. What we’ve done is substitute
> eggplant for
> potato.
> —from Iron Chef America potato recipe show, via Victor Steinbok on this
> listserv 11.8.11
>
> So the reversed or inverse "trade" would be an example like:
>
> I'll trade you A for B
>
> in which the speaker is proposing to relinquish B in exchange for
> obtaining A, rather than the other way around.
>
> I'm told this is now common enough that some young whippersnappers
> (trading e.g. video games or baseball cards or whatever) now no longer use
> the verb "trade" because nobody knows what's being proposed, and instead
> just goes with "I'll give you A for B", whose meaning I assume remains
> unchanged.  Anyone familiar with this innovative use of "trade"?
>
> LH
>
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