"soon before"

[Laurence Horn]

>I have to admit that there is a nice economy to  "how soon before X  was
>Y?" vs. "how much earlier was Y than X",

well, "how much before X was Y?" is equally economical, and "before"
gives you the ordering...

>but, in spite of that, I *think* I
>would still tend to avoid it.
>"Soon"  seems to me to have a kind of afterness in it, so I have no problem
>with "soon after."  It would be constrained by the fixedness of  the
>events.  That is, I wouldn't say, "How soon after your party was the Fourth
>of July?"  but could say "How soon after the Fourth was your party?" or, of
>course, ..."will your party be?"  (I realize that this is entirely
>whimsical ....something to do with the Humpty Dumpty quotient.)
>AM