[Ads-l] "Towed truck"

[dave at WILTON.NET]

Well, there are* frog missiles in the Russian arsenal, so toad guns aren't a big stretch.

(Frog is a NATO acronym for "free rocket over ground." And I'm not sure if the present tense is correct. I've been out of the defense business for a long time.)


-----Original Message-----
From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> On Behalf Of Sammy Dean
Sent: Tuesday, December 8, 2020 1:01 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: [ADS-L] "Towed truck"

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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