[Ads-l] TV dialogue: "We will lay waste your city!"

[Laurence Horn]

Maybe as an alternative we can promote "We will waste-lay your city!"

LH

> On Nov 2, 2016, at 3:36 AM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> The relevant first page of GBooks has examples of _lay waste sth_ ranging
> in date from 1643 to 2012. The second page has the following:
> 
> Garner's Modern English Usage - Page 555
> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__books.google.com_books-3Fisbn-3D0190491485&d=CwIFaQ&c=-dg2m7zWuuDZ0MUcV7Sdqw&r=wFp3X4Mu39hB2bf13gtz0ZpW1TsSxPIWYiZRsMFFaLQ&m=pjv_FQjGP3j0frfS_hjAgkBW7p8hAKqXXJzRUFP4Q-U&s=qCoa0xFeV1ILg4Bwqm0VFlr3Po5pMK16Lbi7AUH0iAg&e= 
> Bryan Garner - 2016 - ‎Preview
> *lay waste.* The traditional idiom is an unusual one: either they laid
> waste the city or (a variant form) they laid the city waste. Lay is the
> verb; city is the object; and waste is an adjective serving as an objective
> complement.
> 
> My impression  is that, usually, people say, "... lay waste _to_ your
> city," here of late. The impression that this is new gets some support from
> the fact that tThe relevant first page of GBooks has examples of "lay waste
> _to_ sth" ranging in date from 2001 to 2014.
> -- 
> -Wilson
> -----
> All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint to
> come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
> -Mark Twain
> 
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