[Ads-l] CPT (1912), on Barry Popik's website

Laurence Horn laurence.horn at YALE.EDU
Wed Apr 13 17:29:15 UTC 2016


> On Apr 13, 2016, at 1:04 PM, Cohen, Gerald Leonard <gcohen at MST.EDU> wrote:
> 
> Barry Popik's website contains a fairly detailed treatment of CPT (a phrase 
> that was recently the subject of an intended humorous skit by Hillary Clinton 
> and Bill de Blasio).  I'm surprised (and am not alone in this) that neither Clinton 
> nor de Blasio anticipated the  sharp negative reaction.  
> Btw, I had never heard of the CPT phrase but am familiar with its 
> synonym "Jewish time", which refers to arriving, say, 10-15 minutes late.

I'm sure there are all sorts of local variants as well.  When I was guest-teaching in Aix-en-Provence, I was informed of the "quart d'heure aixois", probably not a thing outside that university. But googling "quart d'heure" I find "quart d'heure vaudois", with the explanation that unlike the promptness insisted on everywhere else in Switzerland, in the Vaud canton a 15-minute lateness is tolerated if not expected.  There's also a "quart d'heure romand", extending this flexibility across francophone Switzerland.  I'm sure there are equivalents elsewhere, although maybe not that many with the "X time" format.

LH

>     Popik's treatment can be found at: 
> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__barrypopik.com_index.php_new-5Fyork-5Fcity_entry_colored-5Fpeoples-5Ftime_&d=AwIFAg&c=-dg2m7zWuuDZ0MUcV7Sdqw&r=wFp3X4Mu39hB2bf13gtz0ZpW1TsSxPIWYiZRsMFFaLQ&m=RRzhjm_U-slBY3bRmumRYTCQtNtWYgWGs16os0b6284&s=5DHNWYKCLqSmh37q1YQot0QL5iqYwxV7JtYQH8S78mw&e= 
> 
> GC
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> The American Dialect Society - https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.americandialect.org&d=AwIFAg&c=-dg2m7zWuuDZ0MUcV7Sdqw&r=wFp3X4Mu39hB2bf13gtz0ZpW1TsSxPIWYiZRsMFFaLQ&m=RRzhjm_U-slBY3bRmumRYTCQtNtWYgWGs16os0b6284&s=Ob6Nt8esLQen8q8OK4ibA6sS4wmYSZ_RPIeXy10rl2I&e= 

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