"Since many years"

Douglas G. Wilson douglas at NB.NET
Fri Sep 1 04:10:27 UTC 2006


Occasionally I've encountered something like this:

"It's been there since many years."

This doesn't seem usual to me (I would expect "... for many years." or
maybe "... since many years ago.".)

It could be a Germanism (or Swedicism or Dutchism or ...). In some cases it
could be simply an error. Googleblick suggests that it may occur in [some
varieties of] the English of India.

Is it a recognized US dialectal variant?

Or is it a perfectly ordinary English usage which I've long overlooked?

-- Doug Wilson


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