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Pastimes : SI Grammar and Spelling Lab

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To: Wizzer who wrote (1071)	4/5/1998 11:56:00 AM
From: Jack Clarke	Read Replies (1) of 4710

Wisam, Your example "I, like, died of embarrassment." Californian valley girl kind of "lingo". is indeed in use, but it is much different from Alex's example, which was something like I like to died of embarrassment. The latter example is another of those Southern regionalisms and means to come close to, or almost do something. It is very commonly used, especially in the rural areas. Since you know French, it will be easy for you to see the similarity in the figurative use of the French verb "faillir", which literally means to fail, but can be used in the sense of "almost" doing something. For example: Il a falli tomber. He almost fell. He "failed" to fall. That is he did everything but fall. He came close but didn't make it to the falling point. Or in Southern dialect: He like to fell. Or Il a falli devenir professeur de fran‡ais. (He almost became a French teacher.) This means he didn't quite make it, but we don't know whether or not it was fault, whether he "failed" in the literal sense or whether he just decided to go to Med School. Jack

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