[Ads-l] intrusive "of" intrudes further

Jonathan Lighter wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM
Fri Nov 6 13:20:31 UTC 2015


"The mustard" is the only substantive object I've ever encountered.

And it's documented earlier too.

JL

On Fri, Nov 6, 2015 at 1:11 AM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: intrusive "of" intrudes further
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Thu, Nov 5, 2015 at 10:58 PM, Neal Whitman <nwhitman at ameritech.net>
> wrote:
>
> > "It just wasn't very good of an apple."
>
>
> That sounds natural to me. But strings like "various of scientists" and the
> ubiquitous-in-BE "numerous of [scientists]" don't cut it for me. BTW, what
> is the "it" in that expression? The mustard? I've heard my mother say,
> "don't/won't/can't/etc. cut it" all too numerous of times, but not ever
> "... the mustard."
>
> --
> -Wilson
> -----
> All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint to
> come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
> -Mark Twain
>
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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



-- 
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

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