[Ads-l] Fictional Materials for OED (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Mullins, Bill CIV (US)]

Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE



> 
> Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
> Caveats: NONE
> 
> Fictional Materials for OED
> Benjamin Zimmer bgzimmer at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU 
> Mon Jan 4 22:31:05 UTC 2010
> 
>     
> > "Kryptonite" probably deserves a dictionary entry because it has
> > metaphorical uses beyond the Superman genre...
> 
> Here are two such uses, documented from the mid-'70s:
> 
> ---
> 
> * Kryptonite, adj. 'very hard or indestructible, as if made of
> Kryptonite'
> 
> 1975 _Chicago Tribune 28 Dec. F14/2 "Well it doesn't bother me a bit,"
> says the man with the Kryptonite ego.
> 
> 1977 _College English_ 38 (7) 641 Further, we determine that the
> kryptonite-hard desk surface is there to prevent students from
> scribbling.
> http://www.jstor.org/stable/376066
> 
> 1981 _L.A. Times_ 12 June E22/2  [Pete Rose is] 436 away from Cobb,
> whom he could pass in 1984, providing his Kryptonite body doesn't
> suddenly incinerate.
> 
> ---
> 
> --Ben Zimmer
> 

It's been a while since I read many Superman comics, but I don't recall Kryptonite as being "hard or indestructible" -- at least any more so than any other radioactive rock.

Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE

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