August 29, 2006

A Geoffrey by any other name

In the Chicago Tribune a few days ago, Julia Keller took a stylistic look at Vice President Cheney ("Cheney's usage of 'if you will' is 'like' hedging", 8/24/2006), and cited Gregory "Grisha" Pullum's classic Language Log post "It's like, so unfair" (11/22/2003).

For the rest of us here at Language Log Plaza -- Arnold Zwickley, Boris Zimmer, Sally Thompson , and all -- references in the popular press are rare enough that we need to echo George M. Cohan's plea “I don’t care what you say about me, as long as you say something about me, and as long as you spell my name right.” (I expect that "Cohen" was a special problem for him.) But Jeff Pullman, whose names seem to be everywhere these days, has transcended mere nomenclature.

Posted by Mark Liberman at August 29, 2006 09:22 AM