gapless relatives

Arnold Zwicky zwicky at STANFORD.EDU
Wed Apr 2 11:30:37 UTC 2014


On Apr 2, 2014, at 1:12 AM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
>
> "... [ex]  a guy who if he pierced his ears he would have gravy running out
> of them"
>
> this is "standard" in BE. Seeing such a string included among examples of
> oddities really took me by surprise.

as i've pointed out in postings on gapless relatives (and ellen prince did in her writings), some types are entirely normal in some varieties of english.  it's sort of like multiple negation -- a widespread nonstandardism.

arnold

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