Just don’t call it late for supper:

Pat Lile writes, “Today in the Dem Gaz I read this example of words used backwards to the normal order: ‘By early Thursday, tale-tell signs emerged…'”

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An article in that same Dem Gaz quoted an e-mail from a state employee: “My suspicion is that it is probably a good thing he is no longer with DOH … and the governor would not like this on the front page of the demozet!”

When the Great Newspaper War ended in 1991, and the victorious Arkansas Democrat added the name of its vanquished adversary, becoming the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, people wondered what the new paper would be called informally. Some Gazette soreheads tried to popularize “the DOG,” but without great success. Other Gazette soreheads, such as me, continued to use the old name, Democrat (or its short form, ’Crat). There are quite a few of us who still make out our subscription checks to the “Arkansas Democrat.” They’re not returned. “D-G” has some usage, in the way that the Commercial Appeal of Memphis was often referred to as the C-A. (The C-A has become so scarce in these parts, it’s seldom referred to at all anymore.)

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“Demozet “(or “Demozette”) seems to be catching on. I kind of like it. I’ll never use Gazette in connection with the present Little Rock daily, but a shortened, flippant form … maybe someday. Another 100 years or so.

The farer sex:

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Headline on a news item about the lack of women’s rights in Iraq — “Iraqi women fairing badly.” It makes sense in a way. They’re certainly not being treated fairly.

“Pass Christian use to be paradise with a grand history — eight sitting presidents have vacationed here and George Washington’s niece is buried in one of the town’s cemeteries.”

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Here is another case of people wanting to drop the suffix, as with iced (ice) and corned (corn). The sentence should read “Pass Christian used to be paradise … “ Used in this sense means “to be accustomed, wont, or customarily found.”

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