[Ads-l] "just as good _of_ a(n) NP"

[Arnold M. Zwicky]

> On Oct 19, 2015, at 4:06 AM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> 
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: "just as good _of_ a(n) NP"
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> I was never taught *not* to use "of" in those cases - presumably because
> nobody was foolish enough to use it.
> 
> If anyone in NYC was doing so before the mid '70s, I have no recollection
> of hearing them.
> 
> That includes people on TV, by the way.
> 
> It still sounds bizarre to me - and not just from a prescriptivist
> position.


it’s not what you’re used to.

but see
 http://arnoldzwicky.org/2010/12/02/of-edm-in-the-comics/

+of EDM has been attested in print since the 1940s, in “respectable” places (like the NYT) since the 1970s, and for younger speakers it is now simply the standard form.  they understand the older -of EDM, but for them it must come from an odd non-standard dialect, or it’s terminally old-fashioned, or it’s a typo.  

arnold


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