Re: My version

At 7:59:42 PM on Saturday, February 21, 2009, Richard
Wordingham wrote:

> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Andrew Jarrette"
> <anjarrette@...> wrote:

>> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Francesco Brighenti" <frabrig@>
>> wrote:

>>>> In many dialects [I add : of American English that is
>>>> to say], people use as in place of that in sentences
>>>> like <We are not sure as we want to go> or <It's not
>>>> certain as he left>. This construction is not
>>>> sufficiently well established to be used in writing.

>>> Along with other constructions exemplified in the same
>>> dictionary entry (<Them as thinks they can whup me jest
>>> come ahead> and <The car what hit him never stopped>), I
>>> wonder, and ask the connoisseurs of American English on
>>> the List, if this type of constructions isn't simply the
>>> product of an ignorance of English grammar.

>> That type of constructions _sounds_ like ignorance of
>> English grammar, and may well be, but I don't think you'd
>> ever encounter them outside of certain geographical
>> boundaries (e.g. the southern Appalachians or the
>> Ozarks).

> These constructions also occur in English English.

And are quite familiar at that, at least from literary
attempts to render dialect. From Dickens' _Bleak House_:

'Who lives here?'

'Him wot give him his writing, and give me half a bull,'
says Jo in a whisper, without looking over his shoulder.

From _The Journals of Arnold Bennett_, ed. Frank Swinnerton,
quoting actual speech:

She said to me: 'There's a lot of old maids in this
village, sir, as wants men ...'.

Brian