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> -----Original Message-----
> From: Andrew Warren [mailto:awarren -at- synaptics -dot- com]
> Sent: Monday, July 06, 2009 6:27 PM
> To: McLauchlan, Kevin; techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
> Subject: RE: What's the word for...
>
> McLauchlan, Kevin wrote:
>
> > Lateral lying does get about 3 million Google hits, but
> side-lying gets
> > more than 12 million, so ... so I'm not sure where that leaves me.
>
> Perhaps these Google statistics will help:
>
> "I couldn't care less": 563,000 hits
> "I could care less": 1,370,000 hits
>
> -Andrew
Well then, since "I could care less" is incorrect for (my estimate) 99% of the situations where it is used, I would continue to go with "I couldn't care less".
But since neither of "side lying" or "lateral lying" is wrong, I might as well use the one that more people recognize. Also, since "lateral lying" does not appear to convey more - or more accurate or more precise - information than the shorter, easier-to-say-and-write combo, then that decision is easy.
However, neither addresses the original hope, which was for a single word that conveyed reclining on one's side in the same way that prone and supine convey reclining on one's front or back, respectively. There's probably some old Scottish-ism that eludes me...
You'd think that a language that includes words like "akimbo" would have what I want. I'm almost tempted to revive my old membership at CE-L to see what the word mavens would pull out of their... um... hats. :-)
The audience would be lay readers (pun intended), but I probably wouldn't change the word choice for medical doctors, sleep scientists, etc., unless the longer word conveyed something more useful than stuffiness.
- Kevin
"I could care less."
"I'm sure you could. I, however, could not."
"Hunh?"
"Exactly."
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