Weird comparative now fit to print

[Arnold M. Zwicky]

On Apr 22, 2008, at 12:56 PM, Mark Mandel wrote:

> On Tue, Apr 22, 2008 at 3:28 PM, Arnold M. Zwicky
> <zwicky at csli.stanford.edu> wrote:
>
>> ... and a scattering of
>> others, like:
>>
>>   Three times in the washer and my favorite jeans starts to become
>> droopy in the ****. Yes you are probably right. Most of my clothes
>> get
>> bigger than smaller. ...
>> answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080409221210AA3rCAA
>>
>> there are even a few cases not involving comparatives:
>>
>>   You liberals pick and choose just like some conversatives when you
>> want big than smallgovt.. The gov't shouldn't be getting involved
>> with
>> Marriage. ...
>> www.topix.com/forum/news/
>> 2008-presidential-election/TAIHIVR2OG9PLMK2O/p2
>>
>>   I have to be where I can work with something small than big to
>> build up my own self. It isn't a trick.
>> www.mukto-mona.com/Special_Event_/rationalist_day/psychic_confession.htm
>
> I see typoing "then" => "than" as a pretty good candidate cause for
> the second and third of these,

i checked out the quotes.  the last is almost surely a spelling of
"then".  for the second, i just couldn't tell.

> and possibly the first as well.

the first one is good; the writer is complaining that instead of
shrinking in the laundry, her clothes (of certain brands) get bigger
as she washes them.

so, at the moment we have "X-er than Y-er" examples without licensors,
and Neal Whitman's examples of "safe than sorry" without licensing
"better" or "rather" -- clearly truncated versions of the idiom.  i
haven't found similar examples of "late than never" or "dead than
red", and my attempts to find unlicensed "than" with plain (non-
comparative) adjectives outside of idioms haven't turned up any clear
cases.

along the way, though, i did find some examples with superlative
"best" as licensor:

   yeah dont let him hear you calling him cute...although i dunno what
he'd do to you. but best safe than sorry kay, he's not cute hes hard ...
comments.deviantart.com/1/79803344/675716728

   It looks fantastic. Suppose its best to dream big than small!
nobbylad. [about a proposed 72,000-seat stadium]
www.est1892.co.uk/forums/archive/index.php/t-15874.html

and examples with "prefer" as licensor:

   Feb 21, 2008 ... Little ‘Ny is 2 1/2 and only 25lbs, but I prefer
her to be small than big! Worry when BB is a teen and not having “the
growth spurt”. ...
secret-agent-josephine.com/blog/2008/02/21/she-still-fits/

   I prefer to be small than big, I prefer to be dark than bright and
of course I prefer to be me as real than I keep pretending to be
someone else. Not so me! ...
wanhidayat.blogspot.com/2008/04/control-ourselves.html

   ... is lost on the professional losers and misfits who would have
preferred to be 'Red than Dead' and spread their cheeks wide for the
nearest Commissar. ...
209.157.64.200/focus/f-news/1989240/posts

   A man who prefers to be dead than ‘Red’ is normal. A man who says
he has lost his soul is mad. A man who says men are machines may be a
great scientist. ...
www.conversationamongtheruins.co.uk/ Articles/irving-
womensocialinequality.html

"prefer" is implicitly comparative, so it's no surprise that it can
license "than" on its own.  MWDEU (under "prefer") says, "Only rarely
do we find the _rather_ omitted before the _than_", and gives an
example from Margaret Drabble.  then, in a discussion of critics on
"rather than" and "than", MWDEU says, "Plain _than_ seems to have no
defenders and to be rarely used (the only genuine example besides our
own that we have seen is in Reader's Digest 1983).  And, to be
truthful, plain _than_ does sound awkward, perhaps simply from its
unfamiliarity."

i'm sure there are more out there.

arnold

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