Re: utter amelioration

From: Damien Broderick (damien@ariel.ucs.unimelb.edu.au)
Date: Wed Apr 09 1997 - 20:23:43 MDT


At 11:50 AM 4/9/97 -0400, you wrote:

>> And thank *you* for illustrating an interesting linguistic
>> phenomenon, the amelioration of female terms into the perjorative

>He was making observations about the style of debate, and was not pointing
>out amelioration ( if he knows what it means, I had to look it up ; - )

Every old grunt knows what it means to come back from a hard day at the
front, foot-sore and tired, and make a meal o' your ration.

I'm not certain that Kathryn actually *did* mean what she wrote. To
improve usage into the pejorative implies a truly *horrendous* earlier
state...

Damien Broderick



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