From today's NYT

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On Jan 18, 2008 5:47 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> The speaker quoted is the publisher of the Roanoke, AL, People's Voice
> African-American Weekly News:
>
> "Those [black voters] that _might would consider_ voting for Barack ..."

More primary-season double modals here:

http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/005153.html

> I've also come across an example of "baby-mama" ([sic] it was at the
> line break, so there was no way to tell whether the writer might not
> have had in mind "babymama") in print, but I've carelessly managed to
> lose it. It was in either the NYT or the Boston Globe.

Here's one from today's Globe:

-----
http://www.boston.com/ae/movies/articles/2008/01/18/wedding_bell_blues_take_a_toll_on_27_dresses/
Heigl has a regular part on TV's "Grey's Anatomy," and her first movie
since playing Seth Rogen's baby mama in "Knocked Up" is "27 Dresses,"
a sporadically entertaining cupcake of a movie.
-----


--Ben Zimmer

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