I was thinking about the ubiquity of explicit standards for context-sensitive terms like "tall," and decided to search for the phrase "tall for a" in order to bring that out. The result? AOTW all but one of the relevant entries on the first two pages (excluding references to "Sarah Plain and Tall" and "too tall for a") are to philosophy and linguistics discussions. Maybe we need a new example.
(Past the first couple of screens we do find more free-range uses of "tall for a," including this brilliant one: "I'm tall for a short person, over 5' 10"...."
Posted by Matt Weiner at May 7, 2006 12:20 PM