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Thanks for your understanding.
Chris -- 2018-04-11
A number of collective nouns can substitute for each other in a perfectly standard way, so for many speakers the semantic pump may already be primed for non-standard replacements like this. I’ve always liked the phrase “flight of stairs†– it lends a suggestion of transcendence to locales that are often dark, gritty and irremediably earthbound. “Fleet of stairs†is almost as poetic, with a marine displacement rather than an aerial one. And if you’ve just taken a lot of cough medicine, there’s a way in which a stairway can almost look like a fleet of boats, with the hull of each successive vessel sticking out a bit past the last one.
This is reasonably common, with 170 ugh, and about 10 uhits on books.google.com (i.e., 10 ubgh). Examples:
Now if you happen to be living in an apartment, finding a fleet of stairs just outside your home will not be a problem at all. Whereas if your home does not have a fleet of stairs then find the nearest apartment building around your neighbourhood and use that. Once you have found a fleet of stairs which is particularly going to be about 12-15 storeys you are ready to start.
http://ezinearticles.com/?Cardio-Step-E … id=4091168
[There’s no question that the replacement is standard for this speaker.]
“Ouch,” I silently sat to myself, falling to the floor of the first fleet. I try to move my ankle, only to feel that it hurts. “Crap,” I say, forcing myself on my one working foot and attempting to hop down another fleet of stairs.
http://m.fanfiction.net/s/5599625/43/
Then she stopped at the first fleet of stairs and turned around and said,”Okay we can share the guava, make a juice out of it”.
http://glamiva.blogspot.com/2010/02/i-d … ruise.html
Last edited by patschwieterman (2010-09-18 02:11:12)
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A beaut.
It may not be necessary to think of a “marine displacement” to the architecture of ascension. We also refer to flights of aircraft as ”(air)fleets.”
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
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Works for me, even without the medicine. And it’s a return -tripper:
I’ll reserve judgement for after the weigh in, because last time Nog looked pudgy and soft and was far from flight of foot in the fight.
The ways of combating it remain the same – keeping close to and listening to customers; being innovative and flight of foot to ensure that you keep one step …
But having slurped a little medicine:
... more scary than say, lice, if you put one of those ridiculous beasts on one of those ridiculous machines unless you have a flight of stares nearby, RUN!
The sight is mesmerizing for it takes care of everything, even when you walk down the fleet of stares behind your back would be amazed at …
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Fleet—as a measure of number—sure works for me.
Also, a fleet of stairs is the ideal thing to climb for the fleet-footed.
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