"Methamphetamine prose"

[George Thompson]

.
I distinguish between "I remembered the paper [I wrote last year]" and "I remembered about the paper [that I am supposed to hand in tomorrow]"

"I remember the paper" I'd use when remembering the contents of the paper, or at least its existence; "I remembered aoubt" I think I'd only use when the thought of the future obligation to write one.  I would never say "I remembered about the paper I once wrote" nor would I use "remember about" when calling to mind a past obligation, fulfilled or otherwise: "I remembered about the term paper I failed to write that led to my flunking out of reform school."

GAT

George A. Thompson
Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately.

----- Original Message -----
From: Randy Alexander <strangeguitars at GMAIL.COM>
Date: Wednesday, May 5, 2010 9:05 pm
Subject: Re: "Methamphetamine prose"
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU

> 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:
> Manchu studies: http://www.sinoglot.com/manchu
> Chinese characters: http://www.sinoglot.com/yuwen
> Language in China (group blog): http://www.sinoglot.com/blog
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
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