"all the faster" (in Latin too)

[Arnold M. Zwicky]

On Jun 29, 2005, at 9:25 AM, Beverly Flanigan wrote:

> I'm an "all the ...er" user and never thought of it as regional
> (Minnesota
> born and bred).  But I agree that Erik [Thomas]'s examples are odd,
> indeed
> ungrammatical for me.

its regional status is pretty clear.  in the linguistic atlas
materials, it's very much a middle atlantic thing (concentrated from
new york through virginia), but by the time of DARE's collection it
was strongly a north midland/inland north thing (still in
pennsylvania, but centered in the ohio-through-illinois band).
certainly alive in minnesota.  given that my eastern pennsylvania
childhood was closer in time to the LAMAS collections than to DARE,
it's no surprise that i have the feature.

arnold