[Ads-l] cowardous, adj.

[Jonathan Lighter]

I doubt the EME usage ever went away entirely. The homophone "cowardice"
encourages it, and it may sound smarter to some than "cowardly."

JL








=

On Thu, Feb 4, 2021 at 8:50 PM Barretts Mail <mail.barretts at gmail.com>
wrote:

> If you go to the end of the hits, Google says, on page 16, that it has
> omitted similar entries. If you have those displayed anyway, it ends on
> page 33 with 326 hits.
>
> Benjamin Barrett (he/his/him)
> Formerly of Seattle, WA
>
> > On 4 Feb 2021, at 14:05, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> wrote:
> >
> > And almost 9,000 hits for plain "cowardous."
> >
> > JL
> >
> > On Thu, Feb 4, 2021 at 5:04 PM Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com
> <mailto:wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>>
> > wrote:
> >
> >> OED has this "obsolete" syn. for "cowardly" from 1480-1608.
> >>
> >> Noah Webster had it in 1828, with the note "Not used."
> >>
> >> 2021 Rep. Barbara Lee (D.-Calif.) on_Deadline White House_ (MSNBC TV)
> >> (Feb. 4):  I believe in many respects that the Republicans acted in a
> >> cowardous manner. ... They are spineless and acting in a cowardous way.
> >>
> >> Google reveals 300 hits for "a cowardice [sic] manner" and bare handful
> >> for "a cowardous [sic] way."
> >>
> >> JL
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>


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