A reversal?

[Charles C Doyle]

Just now overheard in an academic hallway (one female speaker addressing another, with predictable exaggerated fluctuations in pitch):  "I haven't seen you in like EVER!"

On might be tempted to analyze that exclamation as meaning 'I have never seen you', but (of course) it means 'It's been a long time since I last saw you'--as if some deletion has happened to an underlying (hyperbolic) "for<like>ever."

--Charlie

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org