"Away" > "way"

[Laurence Horn]

At 9:38 AM -0500 2/3/09, Wilson Gray wrote:
>There's a TV commercial, only a local one, I think, in which the
>voiceover woman makes the claim that something is
>
>"_away_"
>
>better than something else.
>
>I've long had the feeling that, once upon a time, this use of "away"
>was standard and _'way_ in this use was considered to be, at best a
>colloquialism. This is occurrence of "away" in the commercial is the
>only indication that I've had, in the past many, many years, that this
>feeling may be based on what was once reality.
>
>Anyone else?
>
Oddly, I'd expect to encounter "aways better" ("a ways better"?) more
than "away better".  But since neither is in my own actual
repertoire, I may be mistaken.

LH

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