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Chris -- 2018-04-11
Around these parts, “hella†is now a fairly unremarkable intensifier that means “very, really.†I can personally vouch for its existence by the late 1980s, and some people in the Berkeley/Oakland area of Northern California claim to have heard it as early as the late 70s. Another hella-cool idiom I like is “come Hell or high water†– I’m a big fan of the subjunctive, and it’s great to see it holding on in fixed phrases and some other uses. These two get combined in “come hella high water,†which reinterprets the acorn as referring to just water – a heckuva lot of it – but not fire. This is still rare. Some uses may be intentional, but I put it down here in “Slips†so I don’t have to worry about that. Examples:
Dudes I spoke to Seraphim just minutes ago, and come Hella High Water they will be there YaFreak’inhoo.
http://www.pocketbikeforum.com/calgary/ … ary-5.html
Sounds sick ill be there come hella high water
http://www.pinkbike.com/forum/listcomme … agenum=158
And of course we have those die-hards who come, hella high water or wind.
http://www.crappie.com/crappie/kansas-c … ments.html
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I came across an article this week about a Facebook petition to get hella adopted as the next big prefix in SI units, to describe hella big numbers. The kid behind it was forced to use “hecka” by his parents when he was younger. The knowable universe is roughly 1 hellameter across, give or take, according to him.
Last edited by David Bird (2010-07-29 21:08:56)
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I’m a big fan of the subjunctive
Would that I were.
Fowler’s Modern English Usage has an interesting entry on subjunctives. He classifies them under the headings “Alives/Revivals/Survivals/Arrivals.”
Last edited by kem (2010-07-29 20:47:29)
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
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David Bird wrote:
The knowable universe is roughly 1 hellameter across, give or take..
Actually, I believe current estimates based on the latest astronomy put it at about a skosh over a hellameter.
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It’s expanded that much since you mentioned it.
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
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The moribunditude of the subjunctive is the best reason to love it. And even Fowler uses it in within that short piece where he need not. Thank the Danes or the Celts or that Lancashire direlect or whoever it be whacked the subjunctive silly. I know the subjunctive so poorly that I’m not even sure into which of Fowler’s categories my uses would fall.
Dixon, thanks for the heads up on skosh, a word I’d never encountered. Interesting! I erroneously connected it to une coche in French, which would translate as a notch.
David, don’t remind us how the space between our atoms is growing. Another new calculation indicates that the universe is also 30 times more disorganized than we thought. I apologize for my major part in that. So the heat death is closer than we complacently assumed. This is a scientific reason to decree more holidays worldwide.
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Thanks for the link, Kem. Though I have all three editions of Fowler’s here at my elbow (but not the new reissue of the first edn. curated by David Crystal), I’ve never thought to look at the “Subjunctive†article before. And I’m glad I did. I love his uncharacteristic use of “Alives†as a noun, but even better is the fact that this article has one of those amazing Fowlerian sentences you don’t see much of these days:
The best proof that the subjunctive is, except in isolated uses, no longer alive, & one good reason for abstaining from it even where, as in the Survival examples, it is grammatical, are provided by a collection, such as anyone can gather for himself from any newspaper, of subjunctives that are wrong.
This itself is proof in its turn (if any be needed) that having a head full of usage rules doesn’t make you a fine stylist.
I think we should sponsor an annual “Write like Fowler!” contest as a sort of companion to the “Dark and Stormy Night” shindig. But instead of the opening of a novel, people would have to author a brief usage article.
Last edited by patschwieterman (2010-07-29 21:58:36)
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God save the subjunctive.
On the plain in Spain where it mainly rains.
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