Date:  Tue, 16 Apr 1996 12:46:40 EDT

From:  Larry Horn <LHORN[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]YALEVM.CIS.YALE.EDU>

Subject: Re: On those Bobdolisms



Well, of course, parents are always using the third-person to refer to them-

selves when their kids are too young to (be expected to) understand the com-

plexities of deictic shifters (Give it to Daddy; that's Mommy's coat). That

would be a different, and presumably justified, motivation for overriding the

assumed familiarity scale, just as much as using a description to refer to

someone whose name you know but your addressee doesn't. As for the persis-

tence of the pattern when the kids are old enough, maybe it's an attempt to

evoke those years when things (esp. the chain of command) were simpler?   L