[Ads-l] Finally, the other group gets it right.

[Laurence Horn]

Remember, though, it’s not that those of us on our side of the isogloss can’t say/write “fuck over X” (for non-pronominal X), it’s that the verb-particle-object order is also possible and, especially with “light” and non-focused objects somewhat more likely (as it would be with “fuck/look X up” vs. “fuck/look up X”).  So it took me awhile, and a look at the actual (accurate but depressing) content of the Vanity Fair piece, to realize you were referring to the word order, which is only mildly marked for me in this context.  If it had been “fuck over him”, it would have been impossible (with the relevant figurative meaning), while if it had been “fuck over Joe Biden and all the Democrats” it would have been unexceptionable.  

LH

> On Nov 22, 2020, at 1:57 AM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> 
> STEVEN MNUCHIN SWEARS HE’S NOT TANKING THE ECONOMY JUST TO    _F[UC]K OVER_
> JOE BIDEN
> https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/11/steven-mnuchin-joe-biden-economy
> 
> 
> --
> - 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

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