Date: Fri, 16 Jan 1998 16:44:22 -0500 From: Pat Courts 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 >