Each Sunday evening, the local NPR station takes a breather from its strenuous shilling
for the paraphiliac agenda, and
tosses a bone to the Middle-Aged Straight Guy, in the shape of “The Big
Broadcast”. Reliably, it leads off
with one of the “transcribed adventures” of Johnny Dollar, “the man with the
action-packed expense account”.
Tonight’s episode included the following line, uttered in
Brooklynese:
“Listen, Dollar. Let’s not waste either your time or either mine.”
Linguists immediately recognize a demotic counterpart to the
expressions for what in standard English is <<either X or Y>>, in
such languages as Latin, standard French, or standard Arabic (the latter being
even closer):
<<aut X, aut Y>>
<< ou X, ou Y>>
<< immâ X, wa-immâ Y>>
We wait with
bated breath for next week’s
episode …
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