intensifiers: which is more powerful

[victor steinbok]

This chart nicely illustrates a part of Krugman's point:

http://goo.gl/9eqyM

Note the median shift from 1992 to 1996 to 2007.

VS-)

On Tue, Sep 20, 2011 at 12:51 PM, Michael Newman <michael.newman at qc.cuny.edu
> wrote:

>
> Krugman (my hero) has an interesting use of intensifiers in his blog =
> today.: =
> (http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/20/taxes-and-the-wealthy/)
>
>
> the CBO estimates that separate the really rich from the only very rich =
> only go up to 2005:
>
> He then goes on to say: "Changes in tax rates have strongly favored the =
> very, very rich."
>
> We usually think of intensifiers as roughly equivalent, but here there's =
> a ranking although I'm not sure which is supposed to be more powerful, =
> "really" or "very." I think it's "very," but I'm not confident about =
> that.=20
>
>
>
> Michael Newman

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