regional "most the CN"?

[Benjamin Barrett]

It seems similar to "all" as well, though AFAIK the "of" is optional
in all dialects. I have a client that always removes it if I include
it in copy. BB

On Dec 15, 2009, at 10:31 AM, Charles Doyle wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Charles Doyle <cdoyle at UGA.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: regional "most the CN"?
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> ---------
>
> Somewhat (slightly?) analogous, I think of "a couple beers" (vs. "a
> couple OF beers") as midwestern. Have we discussed that
> construction, and its distribution?
>
> --Charlie
>
>
> ---- Original message ----
>> Date: Tue, 15 Dec 2009 15:19:45 -0500
>> From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> (on behalf
>> of Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>)
>>
>> One of our graduate students, from Cleveland, reports that he has
>> said "most the books" (= 'most of the books') all his life, and it
>> shows up with 1.9 raw g-hits.  Googling also pulls up "some the
>> books" (2.9 million) and "many the books", although Mike (from
>> Cleveland) doesn't find those possible, only "most".  (It looks
>> like most *(of) the hits for "few the books" are actually
>> irrelevant: "...to name a few.  The..." and the like.  But the
>> hits for "most", "some", and "many" seem to be mostly instances of
>> this construction, with what for standard (dare I say for most)
>> speakers seems to involve a missing "of".  Any common noun, mass
>> or plural, following the "the" would do as well here: "most the
>> people", "most the movies", "most the water",...
>>
>> Does anyone know if this is a regionally robust phenomenon?  I
>> couldn't find anything relevant in DARE.
>>
>> LH
>>
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