"all the faster'

[sagehen]

>OED seems not to include this common spoken construction - no surprise,
>since I was told in junior high English that it was at least as revolting
>as "irregardless" and must never be spoken or written on pain of lofty
>disdain.
>
>I doubt that this ex. is particularly early, but it's a start:
>
>1935 Doyle Laird & Wallace Smith _Bordertown_ (film) : Is this all the
>faster this Model T will go?
>
>In other words, "as fast as."
>
>How would one describe or account for the underlying grammar here ?  Is
>there a syntactician in the house ?  (Goak.)
>
>JL
~~~~~~~~

This doesn't really seem objectionable to me.  It assumes, reasonably, that
there is a limit to the speed that the Model T can obtain, and is asking
where in the remaining range above the present speed it is now; has it
exhausted that range?.  "How much faster can it go?" in other words.
A. Murie

~@:>   ~@:>   ~@:>   ~@:>