[Ads-l] indulgent = 'self-indulgent'

[Jonathan Lighter]

Larry, you just read too much old stuff.  We of the future call that
indulgent. I bet you don't even subscribe to _People_, much less _Us_.

BTW, ads have long been calling pies, cakes, IHOP confections, "diet
shakes," etc., "indulgent."  It means 'rich and delicious,' as I may have
pointed out some years ago.

JL

On Thu, Mar 12, 2015 at 10:05 AM, 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: indulgent = 'self-indulgent'
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I'm still more used to seeing "self-indulgent" for this meaning (when =
> the writer doesn't just mean 'permissive, lazily lenient').   And =
> remember, you can't spell "self-indulgent" without "selfi".
>
> LH
>
> > On Mar 12, 2015, at 9:29 AM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM> =
> wrote:
> >=20
> > OED marks this "Obs.," with its final cite from 1705.
> >=20
> > It has become so common in recent decades that it has effectively =
> crowded
> > out "self-indulgent" in the popular media.
> >=20
> > A modern ex.:
> >=20
> > 1979 Jon Silkin _Penguin Book of First World War Poetry_ (N.Y.: =
> Penguin)
> > 15: If [compassion in war poetry, like Whitman's] doesn't try to do =
> away
> > with, or limit, the war that causes the suffering, it's indulgent.
> >=20
> > JL
> >=20
> > --=20
> > "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the =
> truth."
> >=20
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-- 
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

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