As a result, "light" (and "lite"), which had appeared on everything from yogurt to fudge, became the linguistic equivalent of a nonperson.

Still, I have to confess that the use of "ax" for "ask" has always been, for me, the linguistic equivalent of fingernails' scraping down a blackboard.

The Remainder is the linguistic equivalent of the Freudian unconscious and, like the unconscious, it is not interested in rules.

More often, it stops the action in order to frame a character's inner life; it becomes the linguistic equivalent of a long, loving close-up.

Forgive the Tofflers their diction, which sometimes reads like the linguistic equivalent of a shag rug.

Airline English has, in a way, become the linguistic equivalent of the worldwide nonverbal graphic system that conveys such meanings as "ladies' room," "no parking," "first aid," and "information."

Afterwards, using the best language tools available, the semantic and linguistic equivalents were translated into as readable a text as possible.

If that creature was telling the truth he would probably have been attaching the nearest linguistic equivalents to a totally new phenomenon.

"It's the linguistic equivalent of keeping a level head in the face of transactions that, if true, are just horrible," he said.

He had been assigned to work out a linguistic equivalent to the language, using phonetics supplied by Mwahu.