basketful

[Charles Doyle]

That usuage is common in the speech that I've been hearing for decades.

It seems pretty well attested at least as far back as the mid-1800s.

This from _Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh_ 5 (1866) 399; "Professor Blackie" is the writer:

"In this haphazard creation of a modern pronunciation of Greek according to individual conceit all nations fared ill, but the English by far the worst; for they flung the whole basketful of their phonic anomalies into the Greek grammar . . . ."

--Charlie
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---- Original message ----
>Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2009 10:17:00 -0700
>From: Arnold Zwicky <zwicky at STANFORD.EDU>
>Subject: basketful

>
>"a basketful" is often used to convey 'a lot'.  here are some examples which have moved on to things that couldn't be put in an actual basket:
>
>New York Times commentary by Eduardo Porter, "The Perils of Progress", 3/30/09, p. A26:
>
>Still, I can't help thinking that repackaging the future as a basketful of promise is a con.
>
>.....
>
>http://www.chronogram.com/issue/2009/4/Music/Basketful-of-Noise
>
>... the band is a kind of nose-thumbing, willfully tuneless, acid-damaged, psychedelic noise unit very much akin to early Butthole Surfers or San Francisco’s legendary Flipper ...
>
>.....
>
>http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/04/its_your_country_too_mr_presid.html
>
>Our president came bearing a basketful of mea culpas.
>
>.....
>
>archive.gulfnews.com/gnfocus/india2007_jan/more_stories/10099373.html
>
>Gulfnews: a basketful of delights
>

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