"have ever been"

David Sutcliffe david.sutcliffe at UPF.EDU
Sun Sep 17 13:14:12 UTC 2006


Forgive me if this has already been said! (I am touring and hardly have time
to read all the postings). But an important point here, surely, is that "ever"
can or could formerly  mean "always". As in "you were ever the cheerful one"
or similar quote; I think Swift in Gulliver' s Travels has "their language is
ever on the flux".
In this sense, there is no problem with "I am now, and have ever been..." and
so on.

David

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org



More information about the Ads-l mailing list