Soonest = as soon as
Michael H Covarrubias
mcovarru at PURDUE.EDU
Mon Aug 20 23:02:52 UTC 2007
Quoting Scot LaFaive <spiderrmonkey at HOTMAIL.COM>:
>
> Has anyone ever heard or seen "soonest" used to mean "as soon as?" I saw it
> used a few times today by someone from California, possibly a second
> language learner.
>
> Scot
>
I don't know that I've heard it but it makes sense. In some contexts wouldn't
'soonest' be almost...reasonable?
"I'll be there as soon as/[(the) soonest] I can."
"You should return them as soon as/[(the) soonest] possible."
I've certainly heard "as bestest" for "as best as".
But an awkward search for "as bestest (I|you|he|she|they|we|) (|know|can|)" gets
short of only 50 Google hits. Fewer than 20 considering repeats.
(Any good sources for search operators? I'm too daft to learn anything from the
Google help pages.)
michael
------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
More information about the Ads-l
mailing list