Oftenly

[Douglas G. Wilson]

>A subscriber pointed out that a large number of examples of this form can
>be found online (and I've found examples in newspapers).

Online, sure, anything can be found on-line ... a lot. "Oftenly"
seems to be comfortably outnumbered by "fastly".

In the newspapers, sure ... but not so often. N'archive right now
turns up five examples, four from the 1920's by the same author -- at
least two of these apparently quoted from a real or fictitious
Japanese -- and one other from 1930. Of course on another day
N'archive will give a different result!

>The OED says "Now U.S. regional (rare)", which is clearly outdated.

Maybe not. Maybe it's just as rare now as it was in 1920 ... by some measures.

>Would its reappearance be the result of hypercorrection, or for some
>other reason?

I suspect it's 'reappeared' (along with "fastly" and other, uh,
nonstandard items) simply because there's a lot more unedited
material publicly available (on the Web, etc.) than before, and a lot
more material 'published' in English by persons who are not very
familiar with English.

In many cases -- particularly in many of those produced in
seriousness by native English-speakers -- I suspect it is hypercorrection.

"I blog often, fast, and good!" ... uh, oops, that should be ... uh ....

-- Doug Wilson


--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.5.484 / Virus Database: 269.12.2/967 - Release Date: 8/22/2007 6:51 PM

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