Don't let's

[ronbutters at AOL.COM]

It sounds natural to me (an Iowan) -- introspective data can be deceptive, especially about what one has not heard. This would be easily checked in the usual online corpuses (sic). Don't let's rush to judgment.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

-----Original Message-----
From: Benjamin Barrett <gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM>

Date:         Tue, 15 Jan 2008 14:18:24
To:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject:      Re: [ADS-L] Don't let's


Since I'm the only one so far who has said this is ungrammatical,
perhaps I should provide more detail.

I think I'm the only one of the people responding who is from the West
Coast. AFAIK, I have heard this construction only two or three times in
my life, about thirty years ago. I think the main person I heard it from
was a child of Great Depression Alaska homesteaders.

I would therefore understand this to be a regional variation, but would
never generate this sentence and consider it to break MY rules of
grammar. BB

LanDi Liu wrote:
> Are there Americans who consider this construction to be grammatical in
> their dialect?  British/Australians who don't?
>
> I'm trying to verify whether "don't let's..." is more or less exclusively
> British.
>
> Randy Alexander
> Jilin City, China
>

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