[Ads-l] skinback

[Wilson Gray]

. "... peeling back your skin and feeling the pain."

There's no pain involved in skinning it back.<har!har!>

Can it truly be the case that journalists see no immediate connection
between the term, "skinback," as in the retraction of a premise and the
phrase, "skinning it back," as in the retraction of the foreskin? And "as
in peeling back your skin and feeling the pain" is actually meant to be
taken literally? There are actually (white?) people who peel back
their skin and feel the pain?

Clearly, the Cotton Curtain was more impermeable than the Iron Curtain!

On Fri, Mar 13, 2020 at 7:46 AM Ben Zimmer <bgzimmer at gmail.com> wrote:

> FWIW, here's a journalistic usage:
>
>
> https://www.reuters.com/article/column-dcjohnston-murdoch/column-how-i-misread-news-corps-taxes-david-cay-johnston-idUSN1E76C25320110713
> David Cay Johnston (July 13, 2011): "For the first time in my 45-year-old
> career I am writing a skinback. That is what journalists call a retraction
> of the premise of a piece, as in peeling back your skin and feeling the
> pain."
>
>
> On Thu, Mar 12, 2020 at 6:30 PM Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > Honestly, Wilson.  It clearly means "walkback" or (early ModE)
> > "retraction."
> >
> > Next thing, you'll be using dated, arcane phrases like "short-arm."
> >
> > JL
> >
> > On Thu, Mar 12, 2020 at 5:53 PM Andy Bach <afbach at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > > "It is inconceivable to me that minutes after an Oval Office address
> > ...
> > >
> > > I don't think that word means what you think it does.  Alas, far too
> > > conceivable.
> > >
> > > On Thu, Mar 12, 2020 at 6:31 AM Jonathan Lighter <
> wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com
> > >
> > > wrote:
> > >
> > > > David Axelrod on CNN:
> > > >
> > > > "It is inconceivable to me that minutes after an Oval Office address
> in
> > > the
> > > > midst of a major crisis, that [sic] you have to engage in a series of
> > > > skinbacks to correct what the nation just heard."
> > > >
> > > > Etymological comment gratuitous?
> > > >
> > > >
> >
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>


-- 
-Wilson
-----
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-Mark Twain

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