Noncompositional

It’s been a very dreary new year so far - I think the sun’s been out twice over the past two weeks. For those who like to see the sun from time to time, it’s been rather drab. I move that we should celebrate the new year when spring comes around. Then we could make use of the Japanese words 迎春 and 新春, meaning ‘greet (the) spring’ and ‘new spring,’ which they still use over there to talk about the new year, even though most people recognize the turning of the calendar on January 1st.

As for resolutions: I’ve got just the one - use the dictionary more. In case some linguists didn’t know, those lexicographers know a lot about language, and some new discoveries you’ve made might actually be recorded in one of them big books. Amazing! For instance, I’ve recently been reading a series of epic fantasy books by George R. R. Martin called A song of ice and fire. It’s set in a period reminiscent of medieval Europe, and in particular is said to resemble the War of the Roses (though with dragons, demons, and other more modern inventions). This means we get some fun “old-sounding” English throughout the dialogue. One such example is the use of as as a sort of relativizing subordinator, as in The king is like to exact revenge on those lords as allow the rebels to make camp in their own domains.

Curious as to when (and where) this use of as was in use, I checked the OED and lo, all was revealed unto me.

The antecedent such is also replaced by that, those, or entirely omitted, leaving as an ordinary rel. pron. = That, who, which. Cf. Norse use of som. Obs. in standard English, but common dial. in England and the United States.

An example from 1475 (around the time of the Roses War) is given: Tho as were present. Unfortunately the entry is not more specific on the locations of the dialects where this is still in use.

For a more linguistically-relevant use of the OED, consider how come. This little guy drew my attention just last night when I realized: hey there’s no inversion! In fact, there are several distributional differences between how come and the similar why, including it’s “NP-ness” (Let’s talk about why/?how come the president decided to raise taxes; Why/?how come he did that is of no concern to us), combination with modals (Why should I care?; ?How come I should CARE), and so on [okay, I'm a little tired about now and my linguistics brain isn't working - that's what holiday does for ya]. (And yes, you can find all of these ?-marked guys with Google). Anyway, my point here is not about the analysis of how come, but about a particular comment made by a particular person who wrote a paper on it.

If you look at Anastasia Conroy’s A Look at How Come and Factivity, and in particular at the final note 9, you will see this:

It is entirely possible that how come is derived from how comes it that at some point in history, but it has drifted from this meaning, and this analysis is no longer sufficient for modern-day English.

Now, I’m as opposed to actual empirical evidence as the next guy, but maybe just this once we can look up the word in one of them big books. Whaddaya say, OED?

how come? colloq. (orig. U.S.) phr.: how did (or does) it come about (that)?

Ah, interesting. How about you, AHD?

How come is short for how did it come about that and dates from the mid-1800s

Most intriguing. Of course this says nothing about Conroy’s linguistic analysis, but hey: it never hurts to consider a little bit of history before you start writing, hm? (And the rest of the OED has some interesting examples, including how come taking a non-finite to-marked clause in the late 1800s, but that’s for another entry)