"have ever been"

Benjamin Zimmer bgzimmer at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU
Wed Sep 13 16:35:47 UTC 2006


On 9/13/06, Arnold M. Zwicky <zwicky at csli.stanford.edu> wrote:
>
> On Sep 13, 2006, at 7:56 AM, i wrote:
>
> > ... the 'always' sense of "ever" does survive in "forever"...
>
> roger shuy writes to provide some other survivals:
>
> "everloving" (130,000 hits)
> "everblooming" (63,500 hits).
>   (Even Pogo's expression, "everloving blue-eyed world" gets 571.)

You'll find more hits with the spelling "ever-lovin'" (as in the
anthology _Ten Ever-Lovin' Blue-Eyed Years With Pogo_). Cf. also "the
ever-lovin' blue-eyed Thing" of Fantastic Four fame...
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thing_(comics)>


--Ben Zimmer

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