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

[Jonathan Lighter]

The reason not to do it is the only prescriptivist reason that makes sense:
that there are still enough  people around who'll think you're a lamebrain
if you do.

If you don't give a goddamn, rave on.  Global warming is worse.

As for "to not," that bugs me too, but not as much.  Same comment applies.

JL

On Tue, Oct 20, 2015 at 2:22 AM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: "just as good _of_ a(n) NP"
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Mon, Oct 19, 2015 at 7:06 AM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > I was never taught *not* to use "of" in those cases - presumably because
> > nobody was foolish enough to use it.
> >
>
> That's a strange of a thing to say! ;-)
>
> The way that you feel about this of is the way that I feel about
> "splitting" an infinitive with "not." Nobody ever said to not do it ;-),
> because nobody ever did it, back in the day. Yet, somehow, "splitting" an
> infinitive with "not" is completely ordinary, these days, and I just have
> to "grin and bear it" - a phrase not heard much, if at all, these days,
> though it was once the title of a daily cartoon. OTOH, this of-insertion,
> to me, is as ordinary of a thing as "splitting" an infinitive with "not"
> is, to millions of other people.
>
> In the discussion that I haven't bothered to cite, an English teacher asks
> help in coming up with a reason that he can give his students for not
> inserting "of."
>
> It should be clear that if, you can't think of a reason not to do it, then
> there is no reason not to do it. Why not simply say that it's a matter of
> stylistics and let it go at that?
> --
> -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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