Slang a la the NYT

[Ben Zimmer]

Kory discussed the usage in both the comments and on Twitter when
called out by nitpickers.

http://korystamper.wordpress.com/2014/09/18/stigmatized-and-still-alive-english-in-the-time-of-aint/#comment-2890
https://twitter.com/KoryStamper/status/512696928455237632


On Sun, Oct 5, 2014 at 3:47 PM, Dave Wilton wrote:
>
> It can't be a remote conditional. The full sentence is:
>
> "If I lay down on the living room floor and whimper quietly to myself for
> long enough, it'll eventually be winter and I can be a human being again."
>
> For it to be a remote conditional, it would have to read "whimpered" as
> well. Or since the outcome is known, it would really have to read:
>
> "If I had lain down on the living room floor and whimpered quietly to myself
> for long enough, it would have eventually been winter and I would have been
> a human being again."
>
> I would chalk the "error" up to the fact that this is a blog, not subject to
> the usual editorial scrutiny, and the fact that the lay/lie distinction is
> so skunked and muddled that vanishingly few use it "correctly" all the time.
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of
> Neal Whitman
> Sent: Sunday, October 05, 2014 1:13 PM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: Re: Slang a la the NYT
>
> Maybe it was a remote conditional, using the paste tense of "lie":
> http://literalminded.wordpress.com/2011/10/13/if-i-just-lay-here/
>
> Neal
>
> On 10/5/2014 12:49 PM, David Daniel wrote:
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       David Daniel <david at COARSECOURSES.COM>
>> Subject:      Re: Slang a la the NYT
>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>> ---------
>>
>> I liked her NYT article on slang, then went on to check out the blog
>> and almost immediately, like in line 4, was horrified to see: "...if I
>> lay down on the living room floor..." WTF? World-renowned
>> lexicographer and language writer uses lay for lie? So I decided that
>> whatever else she had to say was probably tainted and I lost interest and
> stopped reading. Sigh.
>> DAD
>>
>>
>>
>> Poster:       Ben Zimmer <bgzimmer at GMAIL.COM>
>> Subject:      Re: Slang a la the NYT
>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>> ------
>> ---
>>
>> Also, Kory is a she. I highly recommend her blog on lexicography,
>> Harmless Drudgery.
>>
>> http://korystamper.wordpress.com/
>>
>> I cited it when I had the opportunity to opine on matters
>> lexicographical for the NYT op/ed section.
>>
>> http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/03/opinion/lies-murder-lexicography-dic
>> tionar
>> y.html?pagewanted=all
>>
>>
>> On Sun, Oct 5, 2014 at 10:22 AM, Dave Wilton <dave at wilton.net> wrote:
>>> I don't see any problem with Stamper's article. It's basically just a
>>> piece that highlights the problem of the recency illusion, i.e., just
>>> because a term is in vogue, doesn't mean it's new. I haven't checked
>>> her specific claims, but none of Stamper's examples seem wrong on
>>> their face.
>>>
>>> And in this case, the op-ed is written by a real lexicographer,
>>> someone with training and expertise in the field, not by some
>>> journalist who half remembers some lesson his eighth-grade English
> teacher taught him.
>>> As far as newspaper articles that address language go, this is one of
>>> the better ones.
>>>
>>> On Sun, Oct 5, 2014 at 3:52 AM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> [T]he word "dude" predates the Dude of "The Big Lebowski" fame by
>>>> over 100 years.
>>>>
>>>> http://goo.gl/sq2KHJ
>>>>
>>>> It does?! For real?!!!
>>>>
>>>> Lest anyone waste his running it down to me, no, I'm not serious.
>>>> I'm annoyed that someone can simply pull bullshit out his ass and
>>>> get it published in the NYT, even when it has nothing to do with
> politics.
>>>>
>>>> Youneverknow.

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