"and nor" -- British, or foot-in-mouth?

[Arnold Zwicky]

On Aug 17, 2011, at 3:00 PM, Arnold Zwicky wrote:

>
> On Aug 17, 2011, at 2:33 PM, RonButters at AOL.COM wrote:
>>
>>
>> This is just a trivisl slip of the tongue or pen, not worth anyone's consideration. Most likely he actually said (or meant to) say "and/or"--just as you mistakenly wrote "and not" and "too."
>>
>> On Aug 17, 2011, at 4:55 PM, "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET> wrote:
>>
>>> Andy Coulson ("editor of the News of the World, 2003-07") is quoted
>>> by the NYTimes, Aug.17, page A3 New England Edition, as having said
>>> in July 2009 to Parliament:
>>>
>>> "I have never condoned the use of phone hacking, and nor do I have
>>> any recollection of incidences where phone hacking too place."...
>>>
>>> As Jon L. would ask, is there a community of speakers who use "and [nor]"?
>>>
>>> I vote for foot-in-mouth, ...
>
> you should probably vote for british.  from my files:
>
> Contrast Sarah Boseley, "Prozac, used by 40m people, does not work say scientists", The Guardian, 2./26/2008
>> Prozac, the bestselling antidepressant taken by 40 million people worldwide, does not work and nor do similar drugs in the same class, according to a major review released today.<
> http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/005420.html
>
> He did not consider it appropriate for society to be run by or for merchants and manufacturers‚, and nor did he accept that the rich and powerful, ...
> www.adamsmithslostlegacy.com/
>
> Nowhere on the packaging does it state that I'd picked up an arabic version and nor did your distributors in Bahrain care to mention it.
> www.htcwiki.com/thread/808844/P4350+Operating+System+Lanaguage
>
> [thousands more ˆ 3/1/08]
>
> (somewhere i have examples from Geoff Pullum.) this is reinforcement: the "and" conveys (emphatic) coordination, the "nor" a negative supplement to the main clause; the combination drives things home.  it does seem to be british, but i see no reason to treat it as an inadvertent error (any more than "and so" is an inadvertent error).


expanding on this some, here are two "but nor" examples"

GKP in e-mail 3/4/08:
 I'm doing a piece on John McIntyre, who shouldn't think I hate his guts.  But nor, of course, should he think that he has his grammar entirely right.

John Darnton, “The Hollow Man”, NYT 4/30/08, p. A23:
  Mr. Mugabe sat behind a large, uncluttered wooden desk.  He did not stand to greet me but nor did he hesitate to shake my hand.

what we see in both the "and nor" and the "but nor" examples is "nor" on the way to reanalysis as as an adverbial conveying 'on the other hand'.  maybe it's not your variety of English, but it's not an inadvertent error and it's not crazy.

arnold

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