[Ads-l] Dialogue: Rizzoli & Isles

[Dave Wilton]

"BUFFY: You know, with pain and then the death. You shouldn't be leaping into the fray like that. You should be fray-adjacent."  Vebber, Dan. "The Zeppo." _Buffy the Vampire Slayer_. 26 January 1999.

Not only BtVS a more likely proximate source for a screenwriter, but the BtVS use combines the violence with spatial dimensions, making the sense closer to that of real estate.



-----Original Message-----
From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of Wilson Gray
Sent: Tuesday, August 04, 2015 11:26 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: Dialogue: Rizzoli & Isles

Thanks, Ben!


On Tue, Aug 4, 2015 at 10:49 PM, Ben Zimmer <bgzimmer at gmail.com> wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Ben Zimmer <bgzimmer at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Dialogue: Rizzoli & Isles
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> ---------
>
> On Tue, Aug 4, 2015 at 9:53 PM, Wilson Gray wrote:
> >
> > "Maybe it's *not* murder. But, it's _murder-adjacent_."
> >
> > It seems to me that I've come across this "[...]-adjacent" 
> > construction
> i=
> n
> > jargonic writing in some field or other. Or maybe it was in the NYT 
> > or in the NY-er.
> >
> > Does it ring a bell with anyone else?
>
> I believe its origins lie in real estate talk, where, say, "Beverly 
> Hills-adjacent" indicates that a property isn't actually in Beverly 
> Hills, but close enough. "X-adjacent" has a lot of comedic potential, 
> as in Larry Wilmore's comment about Justice Scalia's use of
> "jiggery-pokery":
>
>
> http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2015/06/26/watch-larry-wilmore-skewer-j
> ustic= e-scalias-dissent-of-the-obamacare-decision/
> =E2=80=9C=E2=80=98Jiggery-pokery=E2=80=99?=E2=80=9D said a bemused 
> Wilmore.=  =E2=80=9CI don=E2=80=99t know if those words are racist, 
> but it=E2=80=99s possible they=E2=80=99re kind of racist-= adjacent, 
> right?=E2=80=9D
>
> --bgz
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



--
-Wilson
-----
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-Mark Twain

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