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Chris -- 2018-04-11
I came across this expression a few months ago and since then I seem to hear it almost every day. If it didn’t make me smile I believe it could start to become quite annoying. The reluctance to lose the word ‘year’ seems strangely ingrained…
21,800 googlehits
6 MONTH YEAR OLD hedgehog, good health, salt and pepper colour, male. Comes with everything you need; house, feeding dishes, cage, spare food, ...
www.buysell.com/.../Domestic_Pets_Other … ealth.aspx – 25k – Cached
This is an incredible report on a 12 year old girl with the body and mind of a 9 month year old child. She suffers from no medical conditions that doctors …
p6.hostingprod.com/@www.kirchersociety.org/blog/?p=1000 – 35k – Cached
We had a one-year-old, a seventeen-month-year-old, and a four-year-old to enjoy at the big family gathering. And breaking out old photos is always …
irongall.livejournal.com/156504.html?thread=575320 – 15k – Cached
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Really interesting—people seem to be generalizing “year old” as a marker of age measured in any unit of time. So I thought, “Hmmm, I wonder if there are examples of ‘7-year-year-old, etc.’ out there?’” Yup—Google returns over 11k ghits for “year year old.” I don’t have time to post any examples at the moment, but might do so once I get home.
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On more than one occasion I myself accidentally used the ”...-month year old” construction. I recall catching myself at least once, and having someone else catch me on another occasion. It’s clearly a slip as Peter suggests, and indeed a mental measure of age units as Pat suggests. But, what really surprises me is Pat’s finding that someone would actually say ”...-year year old.” How outrageous that there would be 11k google hits for it!
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I too was vaguely aware of the “year old” thing, but it took Peter’s post to make me realize how weird and interesting the construction is. The “year year old” form of the construction is everywhere now that I’m looking. And in really high-profile places, too; the examples below include some from the HBO website, the BBC, The Independent, and I could have added citations from the (US) National Zoo website and the People’s Daily as well. In many cases, it may just be a careless typo—the last example includes both Peter’s find and the correct form of the expression. But some common impulse has to lie behind such a pervasive oddity. And I did find a tiny handful of examples of “days year old.” Huh. Examples:
In 1974, 25-year-year-old Michelle Wallace went hiking and never returned.
http://www.hbo.com/autopsy/episode/4_index.html
A 42-year-year-old woman from the Taff Ely area of south Wales has also died of the disease.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/248880.stm
Old-timers’ day began with Martina Navratilova, who is approaching 49, advancing to the semi-finals of the women’s doubles, partnering Anna-Lena Groenefeld, a 20-year-year old German, in a three-sets win against Svetlana Kuznetsova and Alicia Molik after two hours and 25 minutes.
http://sport.independent.co.uk/tennis/article311002.ece
The 26-year-year-old Delamontagne, coming off his best year in the recent 2005 European Tour season where he finished 68th on the money list, sparkled in a round that included six birdies and one eagle.
http://english.people.com.cn/200511/25/ … 23834.html
A 21-year-year old West Bend volunteer Habitat for Humanity carpenter charged with allegedly molesting teenage boys under the guise of a physical exam for employment waived his right to a preliminary hearing in Washington County Circuit Court on Tuesday.
http://sadlynormal.wordpress.com/2006/1 … e-charges/
The other, a 44-year-year old chiropractor named Brian, appreciates flamenco for stress reduction.
http://www.metroactive.com/papers/sonom … -0430.html
Then goes the story of a 12-year- year-old girl from Chennai who meets a 12-year-old-girl from Pune on the chat site.
http://www.tribuneindia.com/2001/20010828/edu.htm
Last edited by patschwieterman (2007-03-13 11:30:04)
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Newsgroup thread on this subject: http://groups.google.co.uk/group/alt.us … 2b314021b3
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