[Ads-l] "unclear of the concept"

[Mark Mandel]

As it happens, shortly after reading this thread I saw the following in a
mailing on a different list, in a discussion about when to hold a meeting
and who would be willing to host it:
>>>>>
I do not know if my wife is comfortable with covid of any house gatherings.
<<<<<

I don't think the placement of "with covid" affects this as a case of "of"-
spreading. I see it as modifying the whole if-clause rather than just
"comfortable" or "((of) any) house gatherings". That is, it's equivalent to
something like
"if my wife is comfortable of any house gatherings, with the covid
situation being as it is."
Without the mention of COVID, I think it would be
"I do not know if my wife is comfortable of any house gatherings."

Mark Mandel


On Sun, Mar 6, 2022, 11:45 AM Cohen, Gerald Leonard <gcohen at mst.edu> wrote:

> "bored of" looks like a syntactic blend (from "bored with" + "tired of").
> Might "unclear of the concept" somehow also be a blend?
>
> Gerald Cohen
>
> On Sun, Mar 6, 2022, 10:43 AM Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>
> wrote:
>
> > I would say it's more a case of leveling--not an eggcorn since there's no
> > folk-etymological "story" the "of" would be in service to (in service
> > of?).  It's something I've noticed over the 70+ years I've been observing
> > language, the replacement of other prepositions by "of", the least
> marked.
> > Another example is "bored of", which for me is still "bored with". Some
> of
> > you will have your own examples. I've heard, and probably used, "unclear
> > about the concept" as well as "on the concept", but the substitution by
> > "of" isn't unexpected.
> >
> > LH
> >
> > On Sun, Mar 6, 2022 at 10:37 AM Amy West <medievalist at w-sts.com> wrote:
> >
> > > Here's an instance of "unclear of the concept," where in my ideolect
> I'd
> > > use "unclear *on* the concept."
> > >
> > > Eggcorn? Variant? What's the defining difference between the two? Is it
> > > a reanalysis or a substitution?
> > >
> > >
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> > > ---Amy West
> > >
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