[Ads-l] Heard on the radio

[Dan Goncharoff]

I guess what struck me as odd about the phrase is that it is not
necessarily an idiom. A boxer may kill his opponent. It felt like the
announcer had to add SOMETHING to qualify "going in for the kill", and
'proverbial' was the word chosen, but not because it was correct.

DanG

On Wed, Apr 1, 2015 at 5:17 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:      Re: Heard on the radio
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> > On Apr 1, 2015, at 5:06 PM, Dan Goncharoff <thegonch at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> >=20
> > during an ad for boxing on CBS, there was a commentary from a previous
> > fight:
> > "...going in for the 'proverbial' kill"
> >=20
> > Doesn't 'proverbial' require an actual proverb?
>
> as in "kicked the proverbial bucket":=20
> I think "proverbial" in such case basically =3D 'idiomatic' and such =
> adverbs tend to lower into the idiom as adjectives
>
> LH
> >=20
> > I guess it sounds better than 'idiomatic' kill"...
> >=20
> > DanG
> >=20
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