bad words cleansed

[Robert Lawless]

Yes. The concept of dead metaphors came to my mind, but it is not dead in
certain circles. How do we account for that? Robert.

At 07:50 PM 4/17/2003 -0400, susanne.miskimmin at utoronto.ca wrote:

>Hi Robert,
>
>I'm more inclined to see myself as an anthropologist who does stuff with
>language and so will happily defer to the 'professional linguists' should
>I be
>mistaken, but I would consider that to be a dead metaphor.  With a dead
>metaphor the tenor (idea) has become separated from the vehicle (image).
>Basically, it is a metaphor that has become so common in everyday language it
>is used without reflection.  I would say the English language if rife with
>dead
>metaphors.  The one I find particularly disturbing is 'rule of thumb'.  Or is
>that an urban legend?!
>
>Best, Susanne.
>
>Susanne Miskimmin
>Ph.D. Candidate
>Department of Anthropology
>University of Toronto
>
>Quoting Robert Lawless <robert.lawless at wichita.edu>:
>
> > It is so exciting to hear from professional linguists. I have another
> > question that i suppose is linguistic. The other day I overheard the
> > teacher of my first-grade twin sons use the word "brown-nosing" in class.
> > After class I asked her whether she was aware of the origin of the phrase.
> > Of course, she wasn't. When I told her, she was horrified. How common is it
> >
> > for bad words to be cleansed so that people use them with no knowledge of
> > their origins as pejorative comments? Is there a particular linguistic
> > label for this? Robert.
> >
>
>
>
>
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