Safire/NY Times (request re "grab ahold) (fwd)

[Charles Doyle]

But "get firmly ahold of" also sounds (to me) possible. Perhaps the nominal construction was reanalyzed.

--Charlie
____________________________________________________________

---- Original message ----
>Date: Wed, 4 Apr 2007 08:13:02 -0700
>From: "Arnold M. Zwicky" <zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU>
>Subject: Re: Safire/NY Times (request re "grab ahold)

. . . in any case, i take "(a)loose" to be adj/adv here, not a nominal. ("(a)hold", however, does seem to be nominal; note "get (a) firm hold of" and the like, with a modifying adjective -- in this case the version with "a" is preferred to the one without, though both occur.) . . .
>
>arnold
>

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