letting a chimpanzee loose in the NORAD control room

Eve Maler brings our attention to Mark Liberman seeking a name for a particular class of communication …

where you say something not because you mean it, exactly, but because it gives you a chance to use a word or phrase you’ve been saving up

I thought the word for that was blogging. The stuff in our heads is always struggling to get out. It’s willing to escape using whatever media is available.

0 thoughts on “letting a chimpanzee loose in the NORAD control room

  1. Eve M.

    Hi Ben– Hysterical! (Note, though, that it wasn’t Michael Kaplan of Microsoft but Mark Liberman of the Language Log who posed the question…)

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