"Till Death Do They Part"?

[Joel S. Berson]

Aren't we (us, those of) who marry fortunate that "you" is not inflected.

Joel

At 7/17/2010 12:14 AM, Laurence Horn wrote:
>At 11:44 PM -0400 7/16/10, Wilson Gray wrote:
>>"Till the end of time,: as the "old standard" put it.
>>
>>Back in the 'Fiddies, a popular R&B tune of the day ended with, in
>>four-part harmony embellished with melisma,
>>
>>"Till death do we part."
>OK, given this observation (I'd forgotten that song, if I ever knew
>it) and Neal's post, I'm beginning to see the light.  Or a possible
>light.  Maybe just a flare.
>
>So if one could imagine that this is a case of hyponegation (like
>Spanish "en absoluto" meaning 'not at all', or of course "I could
>care less" or "That'll teach you", only without the sarcasm), the
>full structure would be something like "Not till death do you/we/they
>part", with the fronted negative leading to the inversion and
>do-support ("Not till midnight does the train come", "Never on
>Sundays does she do business"), which makes sense.  The only problem
>is the missing negative, which is a small (although for some of us,
>still too dear a) price to pay for getting the rest of the
>construction to sound like English.  It still doesn't make a lot of
>sense in the current context, though--cryogenics, according to the
>article, is in effect bringing it about that death *is* causing  the
>couple to part, before death happens.  But for the wedding ceremony,
>I see how the reanalysis could have been motivated.
>
>LH
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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