End of ADS-L Digest - 26 Jan 1998 to 27 Jan 1998
************************************************

Subject: ADS-L Digest - 27 Jan 1998 to 28 Jan 1998

There are 24 messages totalling 783 lines in this issue.

Topics of the day:

 1. "zephyr" (= nothing) (6)
 2. Fornigate & Eatin' Ain't Cheatin' (new words) (2)
 3. Phonetic transcription--help (3)
 4. "to dis" (2)
 5. ADS-L Digest - 25 Jan 1998 to 26 Jan 1998 (6)
 6. "dis"
 7. cow-tow? (3)
 8. Kow-tow (Was Re: cow-tow?)

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date:  Wed, 28 Jan 1998 13:14:58 +0700
From:  Scott Paauw <spaauw[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]RAD.NET.ID>
Subject: Re: "zephyr" (= nothing)

Gerald Cohen wrote:
>
>   I've come across "zephyr" with the meanng "nothing":
>
>    _ St. Louis Post-Dispatch_, May l7, l997, p.34/1-3; title: "The Sky
> Is Not Falling":
>    "A 150-pound hunk of aluminum...comes hurtling out of space and
> crashes on downtown's major
>  artery. And what happens?
>      Nothing. Nada. Zip. Zephyr. No human pancakes. No busted
> windshields. [etc.]...."
>
>   I have no idea how the semantic development "zephyr" to "nothing"
> occurred. Can anyone help?

This is just a guess, but it may be confusion with "cipher" (Brit.
spelling cypher), which of course means zero.