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Timeline for 'Did see' and 'Saw'

Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0

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Jun 21, 2011 at 14:20 vote accept rest_day
Jun 21, 2011 at 13:47 comment added Peter Shor In the 1830's and the immediately following decades, the usages are predominantly American. This may have been around in American usage earlier, as I suspect the corpus of American writing may expand significantly sometime around then.
Jun 21, 2011 at 1:32 comment added FumbleFingers This one is structurally the same format, from 1828, unless it really is Samuel Pepys words from 1665...books.google.com/…
Jun 21, 2011 at 1:16 comment added Peter Shor The children's song, despite what Wikipedia says, goes back to at least 1883.
Jun 21, 2011 at 1:02 comment added FumbleFingers It is a 'formulaic' usage, but I think the prevalence of the actual word see is mainly just because that's the most likely one to fit the context. The strangest sound you ever did hear simply doesn't get so many chances to be spoken, but it sounds fine to me. I agree though - the main associations are 'poetic' cum 'nursery rhyme/fairy story'. So - good question - who started it?
Jun 21, 2011 at 0:56 history edited Peter Shor CC BY-SA 3.0
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Jun 21, 2011 at 0:46 history edited Peter Shor CC BY-SA 3.0
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Jun 21, 2011 at 0:40 history edited Peter Shor CC BY-SA 3.0
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Jun 21, 2011 at 0:15 history answered Peter Shor CC BY-SA 3.0