"all but" = all of; a mere"

[Laurence Horn]

>"Didn't take me but three days" would be an absolutely everyday
>utterance 'round here.  Probably in Crawford as well.
>
>   JL

Ah, but that's negative concord "but".  The question is whether you,
or the Crawfordite, could say "It took me but three days to read it."
That's the one I was assessing as old-fashioned or high-register.
(In fact, the development of the exceptive "but" within and without
supervening negation is interesting and complicated enough to have
had at least one book written about it, by Terttu Nevalainen).

LH

>
>Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU> wrote:
>   ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>-----------------------
>Sender: American Dialect Society
>Poster: Laurence Horn
>Subject: Re: "all but" = all of; a mere"
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>At 6:40 PM -0300 3/5/08, David A. Daniel wrote:
>>Why should we be exercised about a usage of "all but" (which should,
>>apparently, have been "all of") by someone who follows it with "three days
>>to red the book" (yes, original says "red", not "read"). So, guy writes "red
>>the book," we think it's a typo; guy writes "all but," it is a linguistic
>>event. Balderdash. Let us be a little more circumspect and a little less
>>alarmist about what constitutes potential linguistic evolution vs. what
>>constitutes a blunder.
>>DAD
>
>I don't see "all but three days" here as a blunder on the level of
>"red" for "read" (the latter of which is only a typo if the writer
>otherwise consistently spells the past tense of "read" as "read").
>(Note also "with its level diffculty".) If "all but" is, as I
>suspect, neither a typo nor a malapropism, it may be a blend of "all
>of" with "but" itself, which wouldn't be out of place (although it
>might be a mite old-fashioned) in the given context.
>
>LH
>
>>
>>-----Original Message-----
>>From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of
>>Jonathan Lighter
>>Sent: Wednesday, March 05, 2008 4:59 PM
>>To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>>Subject: "all but" = all of; a mere"
>>Have seen this before in undergrad writing; don't know just when:
>>
>>  2006 Amazon.com Customer Review
>>[http://www.amazon.com/review/product/0613279085?showViewpoints=1]: At the
>>age of 30(6 years ago) i bought a copy of the book AND the cliffs notes to
>>help me through the difficult dialogue. i found this to be a page turner. it
>>took me all but three days to red the book-even with its level diffculty.
>>
>>  JL
>>
>>
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