[Ads-l] on a screed

[Mark Mandel]

FWIW, I've always associated "screed" with a written text, possibly by
association with "script" and "scroll".

Mark Mandel

On Thu, Oct 4, 2018, 2:01 PM Clai Rice <cxr1086 at louisiana.edu> wrote:

> Searching in COCA I find 163 hits for screed, about 15-20% being OED
> screed (4) in construction contexts.
>
> There are no relevant uses with "on (a screed)", and only 4 with "into (a
> screed)", 2 verbs each with two examples: launches into and turned X into.
>
> Approaching from the other side, "GO off on" yields 624 examples.
> Searching for right-side noun collocates I find 70 nouns with 2 or more
> hits, though several of those are of the same lemma. The top collocates are
> TANGENT (55), trip (14), vacation (8). Nouns in the semantic set of
> interest are RANT (9), tirade (5), RIFF (3), rampage (2). On the whole, the
> nouns in the whole collocation set are characterized by being associated
> with a length of time--tangent being a sort of outlier. In addition to
> those listed, the set includes adventure, tour, missions, honeymoon, trips,
> crusade and fishing expeditions. Since the definition of screed includes
> the notion of length ("long or tedious" "protracted" in OED), it seems to
> me that the noun would fit the general construction. Yet it does not appear.
>
> The construction "GO on" has too much reach to search effectively--over
> 22,000 hits with right-side nouns of over 16 hits each--so I searched "GO
> on a". The most frequent nouns to appear are
> 1                TRIP   413
> 2                DATE   241
> 3                RAMPAGE        166
> 4                SPREE  159
> 5                DIET   159
>
> In our target semantic set are tear (33), tirade (13), rant (13), tangent
> (4), riff (2), diatribe (2).
>
> I have not searched the historical corpus.
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Jonathan Lighter" <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> > Sent: Wednesday, October 3, 2018 10:43:36 AM
> > Subject: on a screed
> >
> > CNN:  "[Judge K] went on a long screed."
> >
> > Sounds weird to me, despite OED def. as "tirade"
> >
> > Traditionally you don't (or didn't) "go on" a "screed" (though you do go
> a
> > "spree," like, you know, consuming mass quantities of beer.)
> >
> > JL
> >
> > --
> > "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the
> truth."
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
>
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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

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