ask, n.

[Jonathan Lighter]

How could you resist a blurb like that?

JL

On Wed, Sep 24, 2014 at 3:56 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>
wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: ask, n.
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> The opening sentence of a (quite favorable) NYT book review by Lydia =
> Millet on Sam Lipsyte's 2010 book "The Ask", at
> http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/07/books/review/Millet-t.html--
>
> Sam Lipsyte=92s third novel, =93The Ask,=94 is a dark and jaded beast =97 =
> the sort of book that, if it were an animal, would be a lumbering, =
> hairy, crypto=ADzoological ape-man with a near-crippling case of =
> elephantiasis.
>
> But no, I haven't read the book.
>
> LH
>
>
> On Sep 24, 2014, at 2:01 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>
> > I may have mentioned this increasingly common TV-news type item =
> before.
> >=20
> > The headline on the Yahoo! home page is "Obama's ask of Middle East."
> >=20
> > The word isn't repeated in the accompanying story, which uses the verb
> > "implore."
> >=20
> > So the headline could have said "Obama's plea to Middle East," but =
> "ask" is
> > shorter and maybe less wimplisitic.
> >=20
> > JL
> >=20
> > --=20
> > "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the =
> truth."
> >=20
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>
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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



-- 
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

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