Sweeping rakes

Language Log 2025-11-06

Summary:

Listening to the news on the radio during my drive into the city this morning, I heard the weather reporter say this, "Looking out the window, I saw my neighbor sweeping rakes". Without missing a beat, she made an instantaneous auto-correction:  "raking leaves". What struck me powerfully is that grammar outweighed lexicon.  The grammar was […]

Link:

https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=71827&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=sweeping-rakes

From feeds:

Gudgeon and gist » Language Log

Tags:

and

Authors:

Victor Mair

Date tagged:

11/06/2025, 10:30

Date published:

11/06/2025, 07:49