[Ads-l] Learnings

Ben Zimmer bgzimmer at GMAIL.COM
Sun Sep 3 15:56:38 UTC 2017


On Sun, Sep 3, 2017 at 10:10 AM, Dan Goncharoff <thegonch at gmail.com> wrote:

> https://blogs.wsj.com/moneybeat/2017/08/25/is-our-retailers-learnings/
>
> "As the crisis in U.S. retail rolls on, companies are going to great
> lengths to show investors they are doing something to avert disaster
> <https://www.wsj.com/articles/abercrombie-loses-its-last-
> best-hope-1499705763>.
> They are even making up words.
>
> Retail executives from at least 14 companies have used the word “learnings”
> during their second-quarter conference calls to emphasize their efforts to
> turn their businesses around. The plural usage of the word is nowhere to be
> found in Merriam-Webster.
>
[snip]

Maybe not in the Collegiate, but the pluralizable count noun "learning" is
treated in the Unabridged.

---
http://unabridged.merriam-webster.com/unabridged/learning
1b (1) :  something that is learned or taught
<increasing the practical value of the learnings — H. R. Douglass>
<the film does provide learnings — Catherine M. Adler>
specifically :  a subject that is taught in school
<emphasize the mastery of essential learnings — M. B. Smith>
---

--bgz

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



More information about the Ads-l mailing list