pronominal "such"

[Peter A. McGraw]

It's been around at least since my grade school days in the early 50s.  I
remember reading a lightly humorous short story in about 5th grade which
included this bit of dialog:

"Do I understand you are...[adjectival phrase or name???]," he asked.
"You understand exactly such," she answered.

I can't imagine why I remember this, except perhaps because it was the
first time I'd encountered "such" used in that way.  It seemed to make
perfect sense, though.

PMc

--On Monday, October 14, 2002 4:31 PM -0400 Mark A Mandel
<mam at THEWORLD.COM> wrote:

> On rereading my previous post, I see that I've used a construction that
> she also asked me about today: pronominal "such", outside of "and such"
> and... the like:
>
>> She asked what I as a linguist would call
>> "cinnamental" and what branch of linguistics studies such.
>
> How long has that been around?
>
> -- Mark A. Mandel



****************************************************************************
                               Peter A. McGraw
                   Linfield College   *   McMinnville, OR
                            pmcgraw at linfield.edu