"all the faster'

[Jonathan Lighter]

I thought that was eighty-five per cent [sic].

JL

Wilson Gray <wilson.gray at RCN.COM> wrote:
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Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Wilson Gray
Subject: Re: "all the faster'
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On Jun 25, 2005, at 3:36 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: Jonathan Lighter
> Subject: Re: "all the faster'
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> --------
>
> 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
>

Is this all the better that you can do, Jon? It's a well-known truism
that there will always be five percent of any group who never get the
word. ;-)

-Wilson



>
> sagehen wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: sagehen
> Subject: Re: "all the faster'
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> --------
>
>> 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
>
> ~@:> ~@:> ~@:> ~@:>
>
>
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