done/through (was: Those pesky negatives (revisited))

Fri Aug 13 01:06:35 UTC 2004

On Aug 12, 2004, at 1:56 PM, Geoff Nathan wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Geoff Nathan <an6993 at WAYNE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: done/through (was: Those pesky negatives (revisited))
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> <font size=3>At 01:12 PM 8/12/2004, Mark A. Mandel wrote:<br>
> <blockquote type=cite class=cite cite>How's that again? I use
> "through" and "done" interchangeably, as far as
> I<br>
> can tell, in all the above expressions. I'm White, male, in my
> mid-fifties,<br>
> and grew up in New York City and environs in a mostly college-educated
> White<br>
> milieu of friends and family.<br>
> </blockquote>My wife, a native speaker of the same dialect as Mark's,
> and
> myself, speaking (primarily) Toronto-flavo(u)red Canadian English also
> consider them interchangeable, as well as sociolinguistically unmarked
> (except for being a little informal--I'd probably not write
> it...)<br><br>
> Geoff</font></body>
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>

Geoff, which "it" is it that you'd "probably not write," "done" or
"through"?  For me, "done" doesn't work on any level in this particular
environment. It's too stylistically foreign. I'm more accustomed to
hearing "I ain't got nary another one" than I am to hearing, "When
you're done with that, can I have it?" But, "When you're through with
that, can I have it?" is aces with me.

-Wilson