komponisto comments on Open Thread, September, 2010-- part 2 - Less Wrong

3 Post author: NancyLebovitz 17 September 2010 01:44AM

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Comment author: komponisto 24 September 2010 11:36:42PM *  0 points [-]

Are there other similar linguistic phenomena?

Sticking to prepositional shibboleths, another one that comes to mind concerns professional athletes and sports teams:

Low status: "X is on the Texas Rangers." (Generalized from the use of "on" in expressions like "whose team are you on?")

High status: "X is with the Texas Rangers." (Standard expression used in the specific context by sports journalists, etc.)