Talk:ever so

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ever so

This is like many of the frequent and valid combinations of adverbs with certain Category:English degree adverbs. The other most common collocations on COCA of "ever" followed by a degree adverb and an adjective are ever more, ever too, and ever as. DCDuring TALK 15:28, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Consider this example.

• He was so camp.

  He was ever so camp.

If this is what it means, then yes delete as nothing more than ever + so. Mglovesfun (talk) 16:52, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

The entry claims that there is both an idiomatic and a non-idiomatic meaning. Longmans DCE, RHU, and Wordnet agree that there is idiomaticity. MW3 gives special treatment to "so" at "ever".

This has made ever such a confusion. I am ever so sorry (=Am I ever sorry (US)) for wasting folks time on this. It is close enough to being an idiom for me. When "ever" collocates with "too", "as", or "more" it has a more specific temporal sense, often following a form of "become". It is decidedly odd that "ever" must precede "so" or "such", but that degree adverbs must follow "so" to give about the same meaning. Also one could say "ever so X nice" where X is one of a large subset of adverbs, possibly themselves intensified": "She was ever so damned cloyingly nice." DCDuring TALK 19:35, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Aha! Noting that everso is listed as a blue linked alternative spelling, I'd like this to be kept under the coal mine precedent when the spelling with a space is more common that the single word term. So keep or rfd everso as well. Mglovesfun (talk) 12:19, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

"Everso" is a slender reed to lean on. It is not found in COCA (vs. 1100 raw hits for ever so). At best "everso" is dated or even a misspelling currently. The overwhelming majority of the raw b.g.c. hits are not English, word-fragment scannos, mentions, and proper nouns. We could either keep "ever so" as an idiom/near-idiom. I am inclined to favor breaking out items that would be buried in long entries that merit some special discussion as the grammar of this does. In the case of "coal mine", coalmine appears 6 times in COCA and coalmine 290 times. I disliked that argument, but it is more plausible in that case. "Everso" stretches the precedent beyond the breaking point, IMO.

Re: precedent generally. As we have such dreadful indexing of our "precedents", we would be likely to replicate some injustices of the pre-Victorian English common law system. Only those who plausibly claim to remember (accurately, sincerely, or not) can successfully win arguments in such a system. Newbies have a double disadvantage and will feel even more discouraged from participating (whether of inclusionist or exclusionist tendency). We really need to index RfDs to the sections and versions of CFI to which they relate. Attempting to do so would probably unearth many cases that were closed improperly, archived without being closed, or were decided on grounds that we no longer accept. DCDuring TALK 19:12, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Del--Pierpao 13:03, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

I think that this should be kept, as a simple alternative spelling of "everso". BedfordLibrary 14:53, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Everso has been nominated for verification. If that fails, I'd favor deleting this. Mglovesfun (talk) 08:54, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

no matter what happens to everso, I'm going to keep this as idiomatic. -- Prince Kassad 23:03, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

ever so much

Is ever so much to be parsed as [ever so [much]]? --Backinstadiums (talk) 11:03, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

ever such (a)

Should ever such (a) have also their own entries? --Backinstadiums (talk) 09:54, 13 November 2020 (UTC)

never so

The adverbial phrase never so prefixed to adjectives or adverbs in concessive or conditional clauses with inversion of subject and verb denoting an unlimited degree or amount is recorded from the 12c. onwards. --Backinstadiums (talk) 11:19, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

After "if/though"

Older use after if or though with the meaning ‘at all, in any degree’ is now archaic: Though Sir Peter’s ill humour may vex me ever so, it never shall provoke me --Backinstadiums (talk) 10:24, 28 February 2021 (UTC)