I'm, like, totally with Max (Pardon my California youthese).

Not only can words have multiple category membership, they can be in
between categories (not quite all the way into the one they're moving
into). To connect this thread to a previous one, as Pinker and others
say, categories (linguistic as well as other) have more and less
prototypical members.

I think Kevin ought to encourage his colleagues to read some linguistics
and accept the authority of their own intuitions ... the prescriptive
perspective is not the only one out there.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Johanna Rubba   Assistant Professor, Linguistics 
English Department, California Polytechnic State University
One Grand Avenue  • San Luis Obispo, CA 93407 
Tel. (805)-756-2184  •  Fax: (805)-756-6374 • Dept. Phone.  756-259
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                                       **
"Understanding is a lot like sex; it's got a practical purpose, 
but that's not why people do it normally"  -            Frank  Oppenheimer
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