If the construction had been around much longer than than, you'd have expected usage critics to complain about it. So some people end up with an emphatic inchoative-comparative.ĭoug Harris noted that the hits he got go back about four years. And the double -er makes the construction sound REALLY comparative. ![]() The crucial fact that allows the error to spread as a new variant is that those who hear (or read) the original slips don't know the status of the expression for those who produced it for all they know, it's just an idiom that they might not have noticed before. This would then be a case of a linguistic change originating in a speech error (of a sort that is likely to occur with some frequency). It's early days on the getter better scene, but a reasonable hypothesis is that it all started with inadvertent slips of getter better for get better and getting better (as in the account above), which were then picked up by others as an idiom, and then generalized to comparatives other than better and to the inchoative verb closest in meaning to get, become. the secret to move past them into that place where we becomer better. The metalscene, to my opinion, is actually becomer better and worse at the same time. And, in fact, getter with comparative more:Īre animals getter more and more inteligent ? What do dogs/cats think about when they watch humans? ( link) Although getter better gets the most hits, you can also find getter tougher, getter harder, getter easier, getter longer, getter shorter, and who knows what else. Just means it getter better with age my friend. ( link)Īnd then where it corresponds to standard finite gets: … they tend to have children with fewer alcohol and drug problems, and who getter better grades and are better adjusted,” Sansolo added. Social connections getter better the more we use them. Jan 30, 2007 … With competition, depth and knowing that it is not your spot just because you show up forces things to getter better and for the players to … ( link)Īnd then where it corresponds to standard finite get: ( link)Īnd then where (as in the Rooney quote above) it corresponds to standard base-form get:Įncoding MP3 to WAV will not getter better quality. ![]() With the exciting new vineyards we have coming on stream, the wines will just keep getter better,’ says Michael. I still wouldn't take my chances, though that stuff IS getter better every year. Read this and tell me things are getter better in Iraq. It looks like a new idiom - new to me and possibly to the usage literature, and possibly recent.Ī few examples, first where getter corresponds to standard getting: Was this just an inadvertent slip, with the -er of the comparative better anticipated on the preceding verb get (perhaps facilitated by the rhyme of get and bet-)? Almost surely not Harris got 21,300 raw webhits for, and even granting that there are many duplicates and that some might be slips, there are still many examples remaining that look like people are saying and writing just what they intend to. ![]() (I'll post on "sooner than later" on another occasion.) "What's she waiting for? Will it getter better after the election? After the inauguration? Of course not. I'd do it now," says Rooney, media critic for Boston's WGBH. So says Emily Rooney, former executive producer of "ABC World News Tonight," among others. ![]() With "CBS Evening News" on life support, Katie Couric should walk away. Yesterday on ADS-L, Doug Harris noted a surprise (boldfaced below) in a piece by TVNewser columnist Gail Shister:
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