tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33159158.post3535504386761689874..comments2024-02-25T20:07:56.114-06:00Comments on Mr. Verb: 'to unscrew' vs 'to screw up'Mr. Verbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04048931596146402872noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33159158.post-30772918737119172262007-03-07T09:00:00.000-06:002007-03-07T09:00:00.000-06:00Thanks. That hadn't occurred to me at all. Safire'...Thanks. That hadn't occurred to me at all. <BR/><BR/>Safire's last week column was in part about taboo avoidance and 'to suck'. I couldn't write anything about it at the time, and then ads-l had a little thread that was really depressing in the usual Safire way.Mr. Verbhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04048931596146402872noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33159158.post-11917865222609499592007-03-07T08:53:00.000-06:002007-03-07T08:53:00.000-06:00I wondered if there wasn't some taboo avoidance go...I wondered if there wasn't some taboo avoidance going on. "Screw up" might be Bad Language for some (I remember my mother objecting to it) so maybe Alice uses "unscrew" as a safe way of negating something she's not supposed to say? Just a thought. (Of course, my mother also got mad at my sister once for saying "that sucks" on the grounds that it was pornographic, so maybe she had some weird idiosyncratic ideas about what counted as Bad Language...)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com