Date:  Sat, 1 Nov 1997 00:50:25 +0900
From:  Daniel Long <dlong[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]JOHO.OSAKA-SHOIN.AC.JP>
Subject: Re: "Smell of"

Dennis R. Preston wrote:
> If it was discussed with regard to 'smell' only then it is certainly not
> complete. I don't remember the earlier discussion, but the use of 'of' with
> sense verbs (taste, smell, feel) is widely distributed in the US south
> (and, I suspect, has varying patterns of social significance).

If "social significance" means marked for social acceptability, I
disagree. At least in my case, these forms had no "non-standard" stigma
attached whatsoever. In fact, it was only after they appeared as a
topic on ADSL that I found out there were (unfortunate) people who
thought these expressions were strange.

> Danny Long pointed out that the 'of' appearance in verbs
> appears to be limited to grammatical imperatives (pragmatically they are
> often 'invitations' or 'offers'), and that would seem to even more strongly
> relate them to the parallel nominal forms. If Danny is right,

Have I ever been wrong so far, Dennis? Actually, what I said has been
misinterpreted though. I agreed with what the poster said about it
meaning "sniff" rather than just passively have an odor enter one's
nostrils. Maybe it's a hear-listen, see-look kind of thing. I'll have
to think about it a little more. Right now, it's past midnight here in
the Orient, and my mind is not exactly in high gear. I think this holds
true for "feel of" and "taste of" as well. "I tasted of his drink, but
I couldn't taste(*taste of) the alcohol." This semantic element of
course means that the "of" form is the form of choice with imperatives
(where someone has to actively put their senses to work).

> then 'Smell of this' is grammatical, but 'I smelled of that rose yesterday' is ungrammatical.
> I'm not a sense-verb + 'of' speaker myself.

This is obvious from your incorrect judgement above! I want all of
y'all to remember this faux pas the next time DInIs claims to be a
speaker of Southern English! Let the truth be known!
No, the sentence above is correct. It might be easier if you changed
the object, but you could very easily say things like "She asked me,
'Will you smell my chicken salad sandwich to make sure it's okay?'
Well, I could smell(*smell of) it all the way across the room and I knew
it had gone bad, but I went over and pretended to smell of it. I lied
and told her it was okay and that she should go ahead and eat it, 'cause
I figured she was one of those non-sense-verb-plus-of-speakers and
therefore had it coming to her."

Danny