[Ads-l] "split of a three-game series"

[Dave Hause]

Tribe Homer (the other two military units called tribes were Euclid & Plato) 
barrage (fire artillery on) the strategic road junction of Salvages Split.
Dave Hause

-----Original Message----- 
From: Baker, John
Sent: Tuesday, July 21, 2015 9:08 AM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: "split of a three-game series"

How can the verb not be "salvages"?  I assume it means that the Tribe (pres=
umably a reference to the Cleveland Indians) was performing poorly in a (2-=
game or longer) series of baseball games, but then they had a barrage of ho=
me runs, so the series ended up being split between them and the other team=

-----Original Message-----
From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of=
Geoffrey Nunberg
Sent: Tuesday, July 21, 2015 12:14 AM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: "split of a three-game series"

A propos (well, not really), the discussion puts me in mind of a story Pete=
r Trudgill tells, which I mentioned on Language Log back in 2004. Peter was=
visiting Cleveland and saw this on the sports page of the Plain Dealer:

TRIBE HOMER BARRAGE SALVAGES SPLIT
Peter said he took the page back with him to Reading and posted it on the d=
oor of his office, challenging the students in the linguistics program to d=
ecipher it (or even confidently identify the verb). He told me he had no ta=
kers


Geoff
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