End of ADS-L Digest - 17 Nov 1997 to 18 Nov 1997 ************************************************ Subject: ADS-L Digest - 18 Nov 1997 to 19 Nov 1997 There are 13 messages totalling 468 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. AOL features Metcalf-Barnhart book 2. Interviewees on the subject of Language and Power? 3. Today's stuff (Black Maria, Rather Be Right) 4. Merzouri (2) 5. comedic (3) 6. /er/ > /ar/ (was: Merzouri) (2) 7. "Merzouri" 8. one as a pronoun? 9. "give it your best shot" ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 19 Nov 1997 01:02:36 -0500 From: "Barry A. Popik" Subject: AOL features Metcalf-Barnhart book Here I am, checking AOL news to see if we just engaged in the mother of all world wars. So what do I see on AOL news? "Book Documents 'American' Words." This is from AOL's OnBooks: Literary News and Notes. Book Documents Words as American as Apple Pie By Donald M. Rothenberg of The Associated Press WASHINGTON--It is OK to sit in the bathtub and think highbrow thoughts about potato chips and hot dogs. Nifty, in fact, because these are words that are as American as apple pie. A pair of word historians have collected their choices of "words that have shaped America," choosing one for almost every year since English was first spoken on this side of the Atlantic. When it came to making a choice for a given year, they tried to select the word "that made a difference," said Allan A. Metcalf of MacMurray College in Jacksonville, Ill. They looked for words that reflected "how we look at ourselves as Americans, what our concerns are and what our ideas are," he said. Metcalf and lexicographer David K. Barnhart are co-authors of "America in So Many Words." (...) Hot dog is a play on an old joke that dog meat was used in sausages. The first use of hot dog is traced to the Yale Record in 1895. (....) This may sound funny, but about three months ago--as I wrote on this list--this very same Associated Press did a whole story on the hot dog, and it was completely wrong, and I walked into their offices, and I was told they weren't going to correct anything....