>> And thank *you* for illustrating an interesting linguistic
>> phenomenon, the amelioration of female terms into the perjorative
>He was making observations about the style of debate, and was not pointing
>out amelioration ( if he knows what it means, I had to look it up ; - )
Every old grunt knows what it means to come back from a hard day at the
front, foot-sore and tired, and make a meal o' your ration.
I'm not certain that Kathryn actually *did* mean what she wrote. To
improve usage into the pejorative implies a truly *horrendous* earlier
state...
Damien Broderick