[Ads-l] Reverse "mistake", v.?

[Jonathan Lighter]

I march to a different drummer.

JL

On Sat, Nov 6, 2021 at 9:25 PM Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:

> Right, I’d forgotten that one.  This one is if anything clearer, since at
> least Officer Potter *had* both a service weapon and a Taser, even though
> as you say it doesn’t make sense in context the way it was written. But in
> this one, re “Let’s go, Brandon”,
>
> the phrase that’s gone viral among conservatives since a NASCAR
> sportscaster mistook it for a 'Fuck Joe Biden' chant at a race last month
>
>
> there *was* no phrase “let’s go Brandon” for the sportscaster to mistake
> for anything because the phrase didn’t exist before she constructed it.
>
> Anyway, the reverse “mistake” appears to be here to stay, whether or not
> it’s a mistake. And language change marches on.
>
> LH
>
> On Nov 6, 2021, at 12:42 PM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> wrote:
>
> Heh. It's all too real. As I posted on April 15:
>
> A guest with an authoritative demeanor on today's Morning Joe (MSNBC) said
>
> that Officer Potter "may have mistaken her taser for her service weapon."
>
> If there was a mistake, it had to have been the opposite: she mistook the
>
> handgun for the taser.
>
> Slip of the tongue? Or an emerging reversal like "to substitute for"?
>
>
> JL
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> 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