Date: Mon, 13 May 1996 15:02:15 -0400
From: "Bethany K. Dumas" dumasb[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU
Subject: Dictionary-Thumping
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 13 May 1996 08:46:26 PDT
From: Brian Reid reid[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
snip
3. My opinion was that he was engaging in dictionary-thumping. This
is like bible-thumping, but instead of saying "it says here in
the bible that you are a bad person" he was saying "it says here
in the dictionary that you are a bad person." Book thumpers are,
in my opinion, too cowardly to stand up for their own beliefs, so
they brandish the book instead. This technique is the rhetorical
equivalent of Edgar Bergen's use of Charlie McCarthy to speak for
him.
-----end forwarded message-----
Until I read the post from which the paragraph above comes, I had never
heard the phrase "dictionary-thumping." I like it. Are others familiar
with it?
Bethany
Bethany K. Dumas, J.D., Ph.D. | Applied Linguistics, Language & Law
Dep't of English, UT, Knoxville | EMAIL: dumasb[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]utk.edu
415 McClung Tower | (423) 974-6965 | FAX (423) 974-6926
Knoxville, TN 37996-0430 | See Webpage at http://ljp.la.utk.edu