[Ads-l] at least = at the earliest

[Dan Goncharoff]

Don't you mean "at the latest"?

If I said "since at least January", I would mean it may have started before
January, but not after.
On Mar 10, 2015 5:40 PM, "Benjamin Barrett" <gogaku at ix.netcom.com> wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Benjamin Barrett <gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM>
> Subject:      at least = at the earliest
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>
> A sentence such as "She's been doing that since at least January" is
> normal but seems outside the scope of the Oxford Dictionary site and
> Wiktionary meanings. Both describe "at least" as referring to a minimum,
> and Wiktionary adds a "lower limit."
>
> But claiming January is a minimum is a little odd. I suppose if you put
> time on a vertical scale with early dates at the bottom, this would
> work, but time it typically portrayed as running left to right.
>
> Benjamin Barrett
> Formerly of Seattle, WA
>
> Learn Ainu! https://sites.google.com/site/aynuitak1/home
>
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