While I'm here I thought I'd note an amusing difference of
opinion on
recent letter's pages of the Washington Post over the
definition of
"gunsel." After the word was used in some review or other to
mean
gunman, a reader wrote in to inform the writer what every
serious
Hammett fan knows, the word meant punk in the homosexual
sense. Of
course, by now the word has been misused by so many for so
long that for
most the word does, indeed, mean gunman. Another reader wrote
in that
gunman is actually the preferred meaning in his dictionaries,
only one
of which even noted the earlier meaning.
Happy new year to you all,
Mark
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