Since + [time period]

[Beverly Flanigan]

Again, I'd suggest a post-colonial English is more likely; how about Indian
or Pakistani English?
(After 25 years' experience with ESL learners and teachers, I can assert
that "since three weeks" is very very common; whether it has become
"nativized" in some varieties of English, I'm not sure.)

At 12:05 PM 4/18/00 +0100, you wrote:
>on 16/4/00 4:48 PM, Tom Kysilko wrote:
>
> > On an NPR news program last week, regarding some new initiate Tony Blair
> > may be taking to try to restart the peace process in Northern Ireland, I
> > thought I heard a BBC correspondent say something like, "The two
> > governments have been working on a joint proposal since three weeks."
> > [...]
> >
> > Indeed, is this locution even common in contemporary British English?  [It
> > makes me think of those Jane Austen emulators, who lard their prose with
> > "these three weeks".  Yes, they occur in the Austen corpus, but not very
> > often.]
> >
>
>The construction "since three weeks" strikes me as very odd.  "Since three
>weeks ago" might be more acceptable.  Since the BBC has allowed non-RP
>standard varieties be used by its newsreaders and reporters, it is possible
>that a regionalism slipped through in the correspondent, if s/he were from
>Ireland... although I don't know if this construction is acceptable in
>Hibernian English, either.
>
>--Aaron
>
>________________________________________________________________________
>Aaron E. Drews                               The University of Edinburgh
>http://www.ling.ed.ac.uk/~aaron      Departments of English Language and
>aaron at ling.ed.ac.uk                    Theoretical & Applied Linguistics
>
>  "MERE ACCUMULATION OF OBSERVATIONAL EVIDENCE IS NOT PROOF"
>   --Death


_____________________________________________
Beverly Olson Flanigan         Department of Linguistics
Ohio University                     Athens, OH  45701
Ph.: (740) 593-4568              Fax: (740) 593-2967
http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/linguistics/dept/flanigan.htm