Date:    Sat, 14 Mar 1998 18:02:04 -0500
<br>From:    frank abate  abatef[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]COMPUSERVE.COM 
<br>Subject: Re: standardization of non-standard forms
<br>
<br>Larry Horn said:
<br>
<br>  I haven't gone through all my messages, so I don't know if someone else=
<br>
<br>responded to Beverly on this, but the answer is yes, "So don't I" =3D 'So=
<br> do
<br>I'.  It's essentially New England, as Labov said, and not all of New
<br>England.  Someone from DARE probably knows the distribution, but it's at
<br>least extant here in Connecticut and in Massachusetts.  I've seen it in
<br>novels (labelled as local to some part of New England) and in one memorab=
<br>le
<br>headline from the early 1970's in the Boston Globe:
<br>
<br>        THE COLTS WANT THIS ONE?  SO DON'T THE PATS
<br>
<br>As seen here, it always follows a positive and the negation is pleonastic=
<br>=2E
<br>Whether there's a different construction found after negatives I don't
<br>know.
<br>
<br>Larry  
<br>
<br>*************
<br>
<br>And as a transplant to New England from the Midwest (I moved to N.E. in
<br>1978), I can attest to having heard this use of the negative for jocular
<br>effect, and being struck by it.  I had not encountered it in all my years=
<br>
<br>(27 or so) in the Midwest.
<br>
<br>Frank Abate
<br>OUP US Dictionaries
<br>