Something I keep tripping over
Jul. 27th, 2013 07:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
desperanceSo in the following examples I am going with "argue" as the verb-of-example, but you are to understand that many other verbs would also work in context:
So I grew up with two alternative structures of a common phrase, to wit:
"You'd be hard pressed to argue", and
"You'd be hard put to it, to argue" etc.
What I see, more and more, is:
"You'd be hard put to argue" etc.
And it just seems wrong, every time. You've misheard or misunderstood, I want to say, that's not how the expression works. But is that just me being old-fashioned, has the expression simply changed? Or am I right to stand by my guns, does the modern elision actually mean nothing? I think I know what both my versions mean, and I think this new thing that people say has no semantic content, but...
So I grew up with two alternative structures of a common phrase, to wit:
"You'd be hard pressed to argue", and
"You'd be hard put to it, to argue" etc.
What I see, more and more, is:
"You'd be hard put to argue" etc.
And it just seems wrong, every time. You've misheard or misunderstood, I want to say, that's not how the expression works. But is that just me being old-fashioned, has the expression simply changed? Or am I right to stand by my guns, does the modern elision actually mean nothing? I think I know what both my versions mean, and I think this new thing that people say has no semantic content, but...