[Ads-l] Yale Grammatical Diversity Project - Slate

[Theresa Fisher]

Hi -

I'm a journalist writing a short piece on topics/concerns that people say
"keeps them up at night," and was wondering if anyone had insight on the
phrase's etymology or evolution of usage. Also, I'd be curious to learn
more about the phrase "lose sleep over," which I believe (but am not sure)
comes from "Lion doesn't lose sleep over opinion of sheep."

Thanks!

On Tue, Jun 30, 2015 at 12:04 PM, Benjamin Barrett <gogaku at ix.netcom.com>
wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Benjamin Barrett <gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Yale Grammatical Diversity Project - Slate
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Perhaps it was intended as an exercise on grammatical diversity. BB
>
> > Joel Berson <mailto:berson at ATT.NET>
> > June 30, 2015 at 6:51 AM
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> > Sender:       American Dialect Society<ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       Joel Berson<berson at ATT.NET>
> > Subject:      Re: Yale Grammatical Diversity Project - Slate
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > It came out that way to me, although I too had to decode it and had a
> momen=
> > t of difficulty with the "or just wrong".
> >
> > Joel
> >
> >        From: Laurence Horn<laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> >   To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU=20
> >   Sent: Monday, June 29, 2015 11:50 PM
> >   Subject: Re: [ADS-L] Yale Grammatical Diversity Project - Slate
> >    =20
> >> On Jun 29, 2015, at 11:22 PM, Wilson Gray<hwgray at gmail.com>  wrote:
> >> =20
> >> On Mon, Jun 29, 2015 at 8:43 PM, Laurence Horn<laurence.horn at yale.edu>
> >> wrote:
> >> =20
> >>> "nascent"
> >> =20
> >> =20
> >> Actually, that struck me as a hip way to put it, abstracting away from
> th=
> > e
> >> e.g.-ed group. Consider the that bit of Facebookery that I posted:
> >> =20
> >> "More transgender representation and direct voices in this matter _is_
> >> critical."
> >> =20
> >> The government of the number of the verb according as the number of the
> >> number of the nearest nominal preceding the verb instead of according as
> >> the number of the subject NP is certainly a feature of contemporary
> Engli=
> > sh
> >> that's a-borning.
> >> =20
> >> You see it everywhere.
> >> =20
> >> On the other hand, the blurb does seem to say that a hearer may base his
> >> judgment of the worth of a variety of speech on his emotional response
> to
> >> its, e.g. Appalachian speakers and then it proceeds to say that it's not
> >> the speakers, but their speech, full of patterns unfamiliar to the
> hearer=
> > ,
> >> which is the source of problems. Or is it the case that the blurb is
> sayi=
> > ng
> >> that the emotional response to the speakers is triggered by their
> apparen=
> > t
> >> misuse of the language and not by their non-standard personal aspect. Or
> >> something.
> >
> > Well, it shouldn't have said that; the idea is that we consider
> unfamiliar =
> > patterns either quaint (the British "They didn't leave but they should
> have=
> >   done") or reprehensible and "illiterate" (black speakers,
> Appalachian/sout=
> > hern white speakers) depending on our attitude toward the social group,
> not=
> >   on our attitude toward the specific construction, but I suppose it's
> not s=
> > urprising if it didn't come out that way.=C2=A0=20
> >
> > LH
>
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-- 

Theresa Fisher
fisher.theresa at gmail.com
914 500 3434

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org