approximative VP adverbials

[GEORGE THOMPSON]

        Let me try this again.

        Arnold Zwicky writes: listening to an interview of dolly parton on
Fresh Air today, i caught an (unsurprising) occurrence of the
approximative VP adverbial "about" in her speech - something along
the lines of "I about fainted".

        I have been struck by rather frequent occurences in the NYC
newspapers of the 1820s of sentences constucted with "about" and a
particicple, used when I would write "just about to".  Some examples
follow.

[This one is from a pretty funny story of a law-suit between a
respectable gentleman (i.e., ha had money) and an incompetent
portrait painter.   The gentleman had commissioned a painting, was
displeased with it when it was done, and refused to pay.  The
painter added long ears and exhibited it in the guise of a picture
of the legendary figure Midas.  The gentleman sued.]
". . . as they were about leaving the room, he took chalk and
sketched Ass's ears on the head of the picture, threatening to paint
them thereon and expose it on Broadway."
New-York City-Hall Recorder, 2 (1817):113-18

[This one is about a sailor who is trying to avoid arrest.]
After Jack had maintained his position at the mast head for nearly
two hours, occasionally relieving his apprehensions by a bottle of
grog which his messmates below had fastened to a rope for him to draw
up, a sloop laying alongside being about getting under weigh, by the
aid of his brother tars, the two vessels were locked in such a manner
as to bring the rigging into contact, when he stepped from his roost
in the mast-head of the smack over to that of the sloop, and sailed
securely off, amidst the cheers of a great number of persons who had
collected on the docks and wit ssed the diverting scene, and left the
minister of justice to return his writ non est inventus.
        New-York Evening Post, May 13, 1819, p. 2, col. 1

. . . the Police Magistrates had in some way obtained information that
a certain Rufus Severence was about coming to the City, with a large
quantity of counterfeit money . . .
        N-Y American, February 8, 1822, p. 2, col. 6

On Sunday, a strapping black was about chastizing a genteel well behaved
young white man, because he took the wall of him; and in their walks
in Broadway there is no enduring their insolence.
        National Advocate, July 9, 1822, p. 2, cols. 2-3.

GAT