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Away to Go in the Southwest of England and in Newfoundland, and the Question of Celtic Analogues

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 June 2016

Graham Shorrocks*
Affiliation:
Memorial University of Newfoundland

Extract

John B. Smith (1987) recently drew attention to the occasional use of an adverb + infinitive construction in English dialects, and specifically to the non-finite phrase away to go. Joseph Wright included examples of the construction in the English Dialect Dictionary under both away and go, with away to go meaning basically ‘be off, go away, away he went’. Under away (A.5.Phr. away to go):

Warwickshire: Now, then, away to go. Shropshire: Tak’ this an’ away to-go. A young kitchenmaid, describing the depredations of a manservant on the pastry-shelf: It wuz Lucas, ma’am, ‘e comen in out o’ the ‘all an’ took some of the fancy pies an’ away to-go. (Wright 1898, I:100)

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Linguistic Association 1991

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