[Ads-l] television ads for SALES

[Jonathan Lighter]

But does it really matter, Larry?

Be free to be you.

(PS: "Crazy-colored' is better anyway.)

JL

On Mon, Aug 30, 2021 at 5:00 PM Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>
wrote:

> > On Aug 30, 2021, at 2:14 PM, Marc Sacks <msacksg at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> >
> > Donovan's old song
> >
> > On the firefly platform on Sunny Goodge Street
> > Violent hash-smoker shook a chocolate machine
> > Involved in an eating scene
> >
> > seems relevant here. A few decades later it would be an eating event, if
> he
> > could get the rhyme down.
> >
> > Marc Sacks
>
> Hmmm.  I just checked the lyrics (to confirm my memory that Donovan
> employed the nominalization “stonedness”, which I don’t think I’ve
> encountered elsewhere) and discovered a mondegreen on my part.  I always
> thought he was referring to a “crazy-colored goddess”, but I see the line
> was actually something else. This is the first verse, immediately after the
> part Marc quoted:
>
> Smashing into neon streets in their stonedness
> Smearing their eyes on the crazy Kali goddess
> Listenin' to sounds of Mingus mellow fantastic
> My, my, they sigh
> My, my, they sigh
>
> I picked up on the "Mingus mellow fantastic” (a distant relative of mellow
> yellow?), but not the call-out to Kali. Luckily, She didn’t exact revenge
> on me.
>
>
> >
> > On Mon, Aug 30, 2021 at 10:03 AM Jonathan Lighter <
> wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> >
> >> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> >> -----------------------
> >> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> >> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> >> Subject:      Re: television ads for SALES
> >>
> >>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >>
> >> A "major [sic] motion picture" is now likely to be a "[major] motion
> >> picture event."
> >>
> >> I also seem to remember "[multi-] part television event.'
> >>
> >> JL
> >>
> >> On Sun, Aug 29, 2021 at 5:51 PM Charles C Doyle <cdoyle at uga.edu> wrote:
> >>
> >>> One almost never sees/hears an ad on TV for a "sale."  It's always a
> >>> "sales event."  I suppose the word "sale" strikes Madison Avenue as
> >>> declasse--like a rummage sale or a fire sale--whereas "event" implies
> >>> something noteworthy and exceptional.
> >>>
> >>> ------------------------------------------------------------
> >>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >>>
> >>
> >>
> >> --
> >> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the
> truth."
> >>
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> >> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >>
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>


-- 
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

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