A Transcendent Tally of Mayor Bill de Blasio's Words
By Mara Gay and Josh Dawsey
In his first nine months in office, Mayor Bill de Blasio brought historic and transcendent changes to New York City.
Just ask him.
The mayor has invoked "historic" and "transcendent" more than 80 times in total, turning to the lofty language to describe a number of his activities....
Linguists, however, say the mayor's frequent use of the word "historic" is something he may come to regret.
"It's the kind of linguistic coin that is quickly devalued. It's like any other coin, you spend it too much and the value of the coin decreases," said Geoffrey Nunberg, a linguist who teaches at the University of California, Berkeley School of Information. "You're printing linguistic money."...