[Ads-l] Phrase: [Word] is doing a lot of work

[Laurence Horn]

Geoff Nunberg, thou shouldest be living at this hour!

> On Apr 28, 2021, at 9:13 PM, ADSGarson O'Toole <adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> 
> Science historian James Gleick asked an interesting question on
> twitter a few hours ago that may be pertinent to this mailing list.
> 
> https://twitter.com/JamesGleick/status/1387525011922198529
> 
> [Begin excerpt]
> I would like a lexicographer to tell me about the phrase “is doing a
> lot of work there,” as applied to a word.
> 
> “The word ‘merely’ is doing a lot of work there.”
> 
> When did that start?
> [End excerpt]
> 
> A scientist saw Gleick's inquiry and signaled me. Now I am relaying
> this question to this mailing list.
> 
> In order to be helpful, I quickly interrogated JSTOR and found the two
> matches below which I tweeted. I did not attempt to interpret this
> construct, and would welcome your analysis.
> 
> Date: Winter 1999
> Journal: The Threepenny Review
> Article: The Triple Thinker
> Author: P. N. Furbank
> 
> https://jstor.org/stable/4384777
> 
> [Begin excerpt]
> "Travail" is doing a lot of work here; it is the mot juste, but a word
> that Newman or Coleridge could perfectly well have used.
> [End excerpt]
> 
> 
> Journal: Ethical Theory and Moral Practice
> Date: Dec. 2000
> Article: New Directions in Ethics: Naturalisms, Reasons and Virtue
> Author: Soran Reader
> 
> [Begin excerpt]
> But 'education' here is doing a lot of work: it is richly understood,
> as no less than the creating and shaping of the virtuous person in
> childhood.
> [End excerpt]
> 
> Garson
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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