"all the faster'

[sagehen]

>This is how prescriptivism works. At an impressionable age you're told
>sternly how bad a feature is. Then - if you're one of the few in English
>class actually paying attention - you can go through life feeling quietly
>superior to those who hadn't gotten the word.
>
>Thank you, Alison, for your brave - if terribly misguided - stand.
>
>JL

~~~~~~~~~~
Aw, shucks!
Is this where I get up and publicly proclaim my conversion experience from
past prescriptivistic intransigence to broad-minded benevolence?
Hallelujah!
AM
-----------------------------

>>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