Sep 28, 2022 • 34M

The Rodney Dangerfield Pronoun

In language, redundancy opens up possibilities.

 
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John McWhorter
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My wife, she …

Comedian Rodney Dangerfield was fond of introducing jokes with a kind of redundancy, for example: “My wife, she told me I was one in a million. I found out she was right.” But those seemingly superfluous pronouns are filled with promise. John explains.

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