the then, the late, and in the room of

Joel S. Berson Berson at ATT.NET
Wed Feb 10 18:48:41 UTC 2010


At 2/10/2010 12:17 PM, Wilson Gray wrote:

>Victor quotes
>
>"... _the then_ representatives ..."
>
>from1855. Amazing! Had anybody asked me, I would have WAG-ed _the
>then_ from more like 1965! Youneverknow!

In the previous century, one might have read "the late
representatives ...", even tough they were still alive.  (That is,
"late" meaning "former".)  Or "in the room of the late representative
...", but not meaning the new one took the old one's office!

Joel

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



More information about the Ads-l mailing list