Date: Fri, 24 Oct 1997 15:21:15 EDT

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

Subject: "Bless you"



Mark Mandel writes:

Beverly Flanigan writes:

On "Bless you" specifically: It is of course intended as a

"tail wag" (referred to generally as phatic communication).

Since "phatic" means 'relating to speech', that expression always

looked strange to me, until I discovered that its originator had

not written it! (Whoever it was) wrote "phatic *communion*", which

[It was Branislaw Malinowski --LH]

was misread and misquoted by generations of linguists more ready

to see a word relating to the transmission of information (v.s.)

than to the closeness of souls.