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ruzuzu commented on the word mutual friend
I can't remember where I heard about it, but it's stuck in my head that this is wrong somehow--and that its popularity probably goes back to Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens.
The Century tells us that one of the meanings of "mutual" is "common," but that it is "used in this sense loosely and improperly (but not infrequently, and by many writers of high rank), especially in the phrase a mutual friend."
December 28, 2011