Heard on The Judges: "sucks"

[Dennis Preston]

Randy,

It's a pretty common construction and has to do with verb-fronting in
some negative sentences:

Not enough of the brothers would have gotten the point.

Wouldn't enough of the brothers have gotten the point.


Not many people could have seen the dog.

Couldn't many people have seen the dog.


And with do-support when there is no auxiliary.

Not many girls came to our party.

Didn't many girls come to our party.

Maybe you;re right. Can't a lot of people use this construction.

dInIs


>---------------------- Information from the mail header
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>Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>Poster:       LanDi Liu <strangeguitars at GMAIL.COM>
>Subject:      Re: Heard on The Judges: "sucks"
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>On Fri, Apr 11, 2008 at 10:46 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>  Spoken by thirty-ish, black, male defendant:
>>
>>  "I'm great as a father, but I _suck_ as a boyfriend."
>>
>>  Judge:
>>
>>  "Why is that?"
>
>
>It's too bad he didn't raise his eyebrows and say "O RLY?"  : )
>
>...but wouldn't enough of the bruthaz have gotten the point.
>
>
>I can't do that construction.  I'd have to say "...but enough of the bruthaz
>wouldn't have gotten the point."  Interesting.
>
>--
>Randy Alexander
>Jilin City, China
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org


--
Dennis R. Preston
University Distinguished Professor
Department of English
Morrill Hall 15-C
Michigan State University
East Lansing, MI 48864 USA

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