[Ads-l] "Towed truck"

[Sammy Dean]

That reminds me of a good old  howler from the Ministry of Defence: "toad gun" for "towed gun". 
----- Original Message -----
From: Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Sent: Sun, 22 Nov 2020 02:01:21 -0000 (GMT)
Subject: Re: "Towed truck"

> On Nov 21, 2020, at 7:30 PM, Herbert F. Stahlke <hfwstahlke at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> 
> The first instance of a counter ice-cream phrase?

I was thinking a possible hypercorrection as the motivation, but there’s not enough evidence to be sure.  Here’s one more clear instance of “towed truck = ’tow truck':

https://intensetowingrecovery.com/towed-truck-clinton-maryland/

Other apparent instances seem to involve actual trucks that are being towed or other irrelevancies.

LH

> 
> On November 21, 2020, at 12:31 PM, Randy Alexander <strangeguitars at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> But, a towed towed truck should be something that a truck truck truck tows,
> so a towed truck should be something that a truck truck tows.
> 
> On Sun, Nov 22, 2020, 00:09 Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:
> 
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> -----------------------
>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
>> Subject:      "Towed truck"
>> 
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> 
>> =46rom a notice today on our local Nextdoor Whitneyville neighborhood =
>> e-mail list:
>> 
>> TOWED TRUCK. Anyone with towed truck or Triple AAA? I need to bring my =
>> car to the junk yard please I will pay whoever does me the favor please
>> 
>> [Just noticed the =E2=80=9CTriple AAA=E2=80=9D, which I guess goes in =
>> the "ATM machine=E2=80=9D bin.]
>> Pretty sure I=E2=80=99ve never seen =E2=80=9Ctowed truck=E2=80=9D before =
>> (other than for trucks that were towed), but we=E2=80=99ve encountered =
>> similar reanalyses. Given the iteration, it=E2=80=99s unlikely to be a =
>> typo.
>> 
>> LH=
>> 
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