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Discussion Forum—A Way with Words, a fun radio show and podcast about language

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Whiskey vs. whisky: a matter of style or location?
Grant Barrett
San Diego, California
1532 Posts
(Offline)
1
2008/12/05 - 6:00am

Whiskey versus Whisky. Whiskey is a word with an alternative spelling, whisky. Or maybe it's the other way around. Dictionary.com seems to prefer whiskey. The New York Times stylebook definitively prefers whiskey.

Jolanta
2
2008/12/08 - 7:54am

Eric Asimov's correspondents on the subject of whisk(e)y got kind of exercised, there, didn't they? “Last year
I sent you an email to inform you that Scotch whisky has no ‘e,'" Margaret Tong wrote, all indignant-like. Yeah, well, last year I wrote to W inviting him to end the war in Iraq, and fat lot of good that did, either, Mags.

Now, dangling modifiers, those are a serious problem and worthy of shrieking.

Martha Barnette
San Diego, CA
820 Posts
(Offline)
3
2008/12/08 - 9:26am

LOL, Jolanta!

Guest
4
2015/10/21 - 1:16am

In Harper Lee's Go Set a Watchman, it's  whiskey alright.   But also   missionary vanilla : Dr Jack Finch wants some to use as disinfectant, and of which he expects his sister to have a store in the house for fruitcakes.

It sounds like one of those expressions you instantly know to be a southernism without ever having heard it.  Except there seems to be no other references to it.    Did Harper Lee make it up?

deaconB
744 Posts
(Offline)
5
2015/10/21 - 4:47am

RobertB said
In Harper Lee's Go Set a Watchman, it's  whiskey alright.   But also   missionary vanilla : Dr Jack Finch wants some to use as disinfectant, and of which he expects his sister to have a store in the house for fruitcakes.

Missionary vanilla sounds more like coitus than ethanol.  I recall reading in a book of some woman coming on to a guy, but he relates that he wasn't much interested.  She's a Catholic and all she wants is PVF, but he wants a partner who's into kinkier stuff, maybe a Methodist.  PVF?, the other guy asked.  Plain vanilla fucking, the first guy explains. 

Used to date a church secretary, the first guy said.  She was into giving and getting head, all sorta of Kama Sutra positions, anal, bukake, pegging, bondage, and she asked if he had a shed or a barn, because she wanted to try bellyriding. 

Bellyriding, huh, the other guy asked.  Well, it's only a month until Halloween.  Maybe you could lease a place to jeep a stallion.

Naah, the first guy said.  That was back when I was in Chillicothe.  Bestiality is illegal here in Bloomington.

torpeau
Left coast of FL
97 Posts
(Offline)
6
2015/11/02 - 3:37pm

My departed aunt, a former newspaper woman, used to quote some old expert: "You drink it with ease, but you spell it without."

Early Times, a bourbon chosen #1 in a Chicago Tribune taste test years ago, has "whisky" on its label.

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