"Methamphetamine prose"

[Randy Alexander]

On Wed, May 5, 2010 at 9:26 AM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:

> Back in the '70's I read an article about speed that contained an
> anecdote something like this:
>
> Instead of working on 25-page paper due at eight o'clock the next
> morning, guy is getting down with his old lady. Suddenly, he remembers
> about the paper and freaks. ...


I don't know why, but in contrast to most people on this list, who seem to
be more attracted to lexicographic phenomena, I seem to be more attracted to
syntactic phenomena.

Googling "remember about" and looking at the first ten results, all of them
have "remember" as a transitive verb where the object is fronted, and "about
X" is a modifier.  But here, Wilson is using "remember" as an intransitive
verb, with "about X" as a complement.

Does anyone have anything to say about the distribution of this usage?

--
Randy Alexander
Jilin City, China
Blogs:
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