"or eiher"?

Mon Apr 21 15:57:09 UTC 2008

On Apr 21, 2008, at 7:50 AM, Alison Murie wrote:

> Jimmy Carter, speaking  on Morning Edition about the likelihood of
> success
> of certain peace proposals betw/ Palestinians & Israel,  "if
> [condition A].
> or either [condition  B] ".  This was in fluent, unhesitating speech
> & made
> me wonder if it's a dialectal usage.  It feels familiar, but not in my
> idiolect.

reminiscent of the cases of correlative "either ... either" in

AZ, 12/20/07: Whether either:
  http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/005242.html

with the second disjunct marked by "or either".  Carter's statement is
like this, but with the first "either" suppressed.

arnold

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