'what everything' hypercorrection

[Arnold M. Zwicky]

On Aug 1, 2006, at 2:34 PM, Bill Lemay wrote:

>> I had never heard 'what everything' for 'what all' before.  Have
>> other
> people?
>>
>> Damien Hall
>> University of Pennsylvania
>
> I have often heard it framed this way:
>
> 'I really admired her, what with everything she went through.'

true enough, but the "what with" construction is a sentence-adverbial
construction, not usable in the positions of the "what
everything" (and "what all") constructions we've been looking at.
and the "everything" here is not a fixed part of the construction,
which can have almost *any* NP in this position:
   what with the troubles (that) she had
   what with the troubles that beset her
the "what with" construction (or family of constructions) just
happens to bear some superficial resemblances to the examples we've
been looking at.

arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu)

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