Ah, good old Roger - we pedants should stick together!

I would have [ahem!] mentioned that I was very much aware of this use of "of", but I just assumed^* everyone would be so familiar with it that it wasn't worth mentioning. I think I first encountered it (in print) in The Catcher in The Rye in around 1969 (I know the date, 'cos I borrowed it off my (then) girlfriend's father). I'd come across it in primary school, of course; although I was too much of a pedant even in those days to have used it myself.


Do you have those awful aberrant apostrophes in Australia? You know the kind of thing: "those larrikin's keep making gramatical error's". Maybe it's the same kind of thing -- I know it's drummed into kids over here, but there are still plenty who just don't take it in.

Steve

^*"Assume" makes an ass of u and me", as I was told once on a course.