[Ads-l] on a screed

[Jonathan Lighter]

FWIW, a "screed" to me strongly connotes written, boring, and tendentious.

JL

On Thu, Oct 4, 2018 at 3:16 PM Dan Goncharoff <thegonch at gmail.com> wrote:

> It is like the lyric from "My Fair Justice":
>
> "No it's just on the screed when you rave..."
>
> On Thu, Oct 4, 2018, 3:01 PM Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:
>
> > > On Oct 4, 2018, at 2:33 PM, Mark Mandel <mark.a.mandel at GMAIL.COM>
> wrote:
> > >
> > > FWIW, I've always associated "screed" with a written text, possibly by
> > > association with "script" and "scroll".
> > >
> > > Mark Mandel
> >
> > It’s evidently a cognate of “shred”. Most OED entries do specify writing,
> > but not all.  The most general relevant lemma is
> >
> > 3a. A long or tedious speech, piece of writing, list, etc. Now chiefly: a
> > speech or piece of writing characterized by vehement or protracted
> > criticism or complaint; a rant, a tirade.
> >
> > —which seems basically on target. Curiously, AHD just commits itself to a
> > screed being ‘a long monotonous speech or piece of writing’, missing the
> > 'vehement or protracted criticism or complaint’ component that we’ve been
> > assuming is associated with (most?) screeds.  After all, based on my long
> > experience as a member of the Yale faculty, I would venture to maintain
> > that a speech can be long and monotonous without being a screed.
> >
> > LH
> >
> > > 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."
> > >>>
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> > >>>
> > >>
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> >
>
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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>


-- 
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

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