innovative "nevertheless"

[Laurence Horn]

At 8:03 PM +0000 11/24/06, Chris F Waigl wrote:
>Chris F Waigl wrote:
>>Here's another one:
>>
>>====
>>First, we have no control over the streets of Baghdad never the less the
>>whole country, so how can we enforce this solution on anybody?
>>http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_sameh_ab_061025_iraq_2c_the_single_way.htm
>>====
>>
>... and one more, with the *opposite* meaning "even more so", in an
>Amazon review:

I like the innovative "never the less" cites, which I hadn't
encountered before, but the two varieties cited here aren't unique to
this innovative version of "much less" and "let alone", both of which
are canonically restricted to negative (or more exactly downward
entailing) contexts, but both of which can be found in positive
contexts with the same "or even" meaning displayed by "never the
less".  (This isn't surprising, if "never the less" is simply a new
"version" of "much less"; I'm not convinced that there's a blend with
"never mind", especially in the absence of a cited instance of "never
less", never the less a whole bunch of 'em.)  Here are a few positive
instances of "let alone"; others with "much less" can be googled up
as well.  The last one in particular ("unhappy let alone angry") is
similar to the "Roll Over [viz., a single track on the cd] never the
less the entire cd" example.

Allowing a woman to pull out a wallet at the table is so classless,
let alone a true indicator that the man who allows it is totally
cheap and likely shouldn't be dating.

Ann Arbor, and [sic] insperation [sic] to all cities, let alone communities

Unhappy, let alone angry, religious people provide more persuasive
arguments for atheism and secularism than do all the arguments of
atheists.

>
>====
>I've also fallen in love with "Roll Over", which can be described as a
>type of new age jam song, with a electronic twist to it......something
>that the String Cheese Incident first tried on this cd. Rollover, alone
>is an experience...never the less, the entire cd. Sit down, get up,
>drive around, walk about......whatever you're doing, you'll enjoy
>listening to this cd over and over.
>http://www.amazon.com/gp/cdp/member-reviews/A3SG3Z7NB02V64/ref=cm_cr_auth/104-1082932-2206361
>====
>
>So obviously now I'm searching for {"never the less the|a|this|that|an
>whole|entire"}, and finding:

But the ones below do occur in negative (downward entailing)
environments and can be paraphrases by (standard) "much less" (or
"not alone"), can't they?  The sense is "not/barely (even) X, much
less Y", where Y>X.   For me, the outlier is the "Roll Over" case,
but as noted we can find analogous outliers with "much less"/"let
alone".

LH

>
>====
>i don't see anything in it for me, other than not being able to make it
>through one speech, never the less, a whole ton of speeches.......long
>day, tiring, exhausting, in my estimation, not something i would look
>forward to at all, in any way shape or form, and i'm just wondering, if
>others have felt this way before, and then did go and enjoy themselves
>http://www.hdac.org/phorum/read.php?5,17671,17883
>====
>"The magic in the book was awesome and I really can't believe you wrote
>all of it. I can barely think up a page never the less a whole book."
>[attributed to a 5th-grader]
>http://tri-studio.com/kathegogolewskiTEACHERS1.html
>====
>

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