[Ads-l] "best" as invariable modal verb

[Wilson Gray]

Sounds like "standard" BE, to me.

On Thu, Aug 10, 2017 at 12:40 PM, Ben Zimmer <bgzimmer at gmail.com> wrote:

> For Language Log, I wrote about Trump's threat, "North Korea best not...":
>
> http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=34000
>
> Towards the end there's a 66-year antedating of OED3 "best" v.2 (1900 ->
> 1834).
>
> 1834 Charles Augustus Davis _Letters of J. Downing, Major_ 256 'Well,' says
> Mr. Van Buren, it's a pretty severe letter, but we best not translate it --
> I'll read it as it is, with pleasure.'
> https://books.google.com/books?id=Vk0LAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA256
>
> --bgz
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



-- 
-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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