[Ads-l] "Ever -ING . . . " instead of "Ever BASE . . .?"

[Laurence Horn]

Thanks for noticing this, Amy! I've asked my colleagues on YGDP but I wonder if it's not a one-off. I couldn't find other examples by Googling that weren't irrelevant, e.g.
"You'd be scared, too, if your first time ever driving a real-deal racecar was at Daytona."

I tried searching for "ever drinking” as a parallel and I was reminded that Gollum posed the riddle ""Never thirsty, ever drinking" in The Hobbit (A: a fish) and also informed that there's a "Never Have I Ever" Drinking App.  Nothing like the myriad hits for "ever drink", e.g. "Ever drink Bailey's from a shoe?”  

LH

> On Apr 15, 2026, at 11:10 AM, Amy West <medievalist at W-STS.COM> wrote:
> 
> Wondering if this is a variation . . .
> 
> I spotted this construction in today's Pearls Before Swine:
> 
> https://www.gocomics.com/pearlsbeforeswine/2026/04/15
> 
> "Ever driving behind a car that doesn't go when the light turns green?"
> 
> I would have used "Ever drive . . . " instead of the "Ever driving . . . ". I don't see this as a phenomenon in the Yale Grammatical Diversity Project. Is this a variation? It seems to be derived from an ellision of "Are you . . . " ("Are you ever driving behind a car . . .") as opposed to an ellision of "Do you . . . " for the "Ever drive . . .?" construction.
> 
> ---Amy West
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org


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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org