"and nor" -- British, or foot-in-mouth?

[Jonathan Lighter]

Except that there *is* a speech community of people who say "incidences"
instead of "incidents."

If you can go by cable news, it's everybody but people on this list.

I suppose "and plus," a U.S. freshman fave since the at least the 1970s, has
already been covered.  Of course, it's only one-half as egregious.

JL



On Wed, Aug 17, 2011 at 4:55 PM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> Subject:      "and nor" -- British, or foot-in-mouth?
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Andy Coulson ("editor of the News of the World, 2003-07") is quoted
> by the NYTimes, Aug.17, page A3 New England Edition, as having said
> in July 2009 to Parliament:
>
> "I have never condoned the use of phone hacking, and nor do I have
> any recollection of incidences where phone hacking too place."
>
> (As an aside, this is not only "I avow not" but also "I don't remember".)
>
> As Jon L. would ask, is there a community of speakers who use "and not"?
>
> I vote for foot-in-mouth, considering the use of "incidences" instead
> of "incidents".  (The possible senses of "incidence" = "incident" (in
> sense 1) are marked by the OED as Obs., and are off-target -- don't
> connote "event" -- anyway.)
>
> Joel
>
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