[Ads-l] "spaz(z)" redux

[Bill Mullins]

My recollection of "Shapiro's Law" was that it had something to do with early examples of slang terms often show up as race horse names (thus my recent example).

I searched for it in the ADS-L archives when I wrote the post, which is where I first ran across it when I joined up ca. 2005-2006, but I couldn't find it (the Google search of the archives is less than stellar).

Bill

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On 15 Jun 2022, at 20:47, Shapiro, Fred <fred.shapiro at yale.edu> wrote:

> Remind me, what is Shapiro's Law ?

I thought it was ‘if there’s a cute story, it’s probably wrong’ (with regards to etymology). I recall you said this at ICHLL in 2016, but I might have subsequently invented the name for it myself.

In any case it seems not very applicable to Bill Mullins’s point. Perhaps there are multiple Shapiro’s Laws.


Daphne


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