"of a TIMESPAN"

[Arnold Zwicky]

On Mar 8, 2009, at 11:10 AM, Bill Palmer wrote:

> Here's another North Carolinaism, or at least I've never heard it
> anywhere
> else, and in fact I've only heard it once there.
>
> "early of a morning".  In the sense of "early in the morning".  e.g.
> "I
> enjoy sitting outside, early of a morning."
>
> Speaker was an early 80ish woman from north central NC (Vance County).
> Don't know if it was unique to her idiolect, or in general use in
> that area.

i'd expect this to be found scattered over english dialects (UK and
US), esp. in rural, non-standard, and older speakers.  it's a survival
from earliest english -- subentry 51a for "of" in the OED Online ('at
some time during, in the course of, on') -- with cites of things like
"of a Thursday", "of an evening", "of a night", etc. over about 1700
years.

arnold

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