[Ads-l] WOTY? "berm"

[Joel Berson]

What I found remark-able about the news broadcast was not climbing the berm but its use of the word, which Jim remarks he does not recall hearing since 1969.

Joel


      From: James A. Landau <JJJRLandau at NETSCAPE.COM>
 To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU 
 Sent: Sunday, May 1, 2016 12:39 PM
 Subject: [ADS-L] WOTY? "berm"
   
On  Sat, 30 Apr 2016 21:43:48 Zone+0000 Joel Berson <berson at ATT.NET> wrote:

<quote>
Said and seen during an ABC-affiliate news broadcast, although I don't 
see it in "print" (online):  To reach the venue for his Friday address 
in California (to a Republican Party meeting?), Trump had to detour due 
to a demonstration and climb up a "berm", as the announcer called it. 
<end quote>

When I was in Basic Training at Fort Knox (summer of 1969), the dirt wall on each side of a rifle range was called a "berm" (and I seem to recall someone making a pun about "Berm-a Road").  I can't recall having heard the word "berm" since then.

Trump is 69.  It's a little hard imagining someone that age scaling a concrete wall, but climbing over a dirt mound should not have been a problem,so I don't see anything remark-able about that news broadcast.  It is quite easy to to throw insults at Adolph Trump without trying to work in his fantastic border wall.

- Jim Landau

_____________________________________________________________
Netscape.  Just the Net You Need.

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



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