Date: Fri, 16 Jan 1998 16:44:22 -0500

From: Pat Courts courts[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]AIT.FREDONIA.EDU

Subject: Re: "as best as I can remember"



Chicago born and bred, with stints in East Lansing, Michigan and now

upstate NY: I always do it as best I can, but more often I do it bes[t] I

can. Now some folks like it and some folks don't.



At 09:58 PM 1/14/98 -0600, Donald M. Lance wrote:

Jerry Cohen wrote on January 8:



I believe the construction almost certainly originated as a syntactic

blend--a good example of which is "time and again," blended from "time

after time" and "again and again." In the case of "as best as I can

remember," let's leave off "remember" for the moment and operate with the

following context: "I'll do it as well as I can" and "I'll do it to the

best of my ability." These two can blend to produce "I'll do it as best as

I can." With "as best as" now interchangeable with "as well as" (in this

initial context), its use was extended to other contexts, e.g. "as best as

I can remember."



............................



(1) I'll do it as well as I can.

(2) I'll do it the best I can. (from ...the best way I can)



These two got blended. Jerry, you may not say (2), but I do, and I suspect

others do too.



DMLance