"The need for mass exposure to basic linguistics courses".

When I take power, there WILL be mass exposure to linguistics courses.

I will write the textbook myself, and everyone will study it.

May I be your hospodar, or mutasharrif? I will flatter you effectively and employ subtly compulsive methods on the sheeplike populace.

I like this post, and the site in general, Language Hat (do you have a real identity ?)

My interest in language and etymology is peripheral on the face of it, but real none-the-less.

This particular post intrigues me two-fold.

(1) that the OED does indeed have a less "convincing" story than the AHD, despite the same essential fact.

(2) that in my quest for better models of what we know, that a "good story" is often the preferred truth - inescapable fact in itself.

In the immortal words of Maxwell Scott, "When the legend becomes fact, print the legend."

As to your question, no, I do not have a real identity. "I" am a resultant of a number of ideational vectors created by the ungoverned and ever-shifting vortices of the internet-ether. Wherever my virtual hat lands is my head.

Like it.

I did in fact also post my own link to you on this subject.

Link Here

http://www.psybertron.org/2004_01_01_archive.html#107299023907516191