Re: Oh hell!

From	Hibou <vpaereru-unmonitored@yahoo.com.invalid>
Newsgroups	alt.usage.english
Subject	Re: Oh hell!
Date	2026-08-20 15:34 +0100
Message-ID	<neohitF8ll7U1@mid.individual.net> (permalink)
References	<neobbsF75csU2@mid.individual.net> <1166vcq$3h6c9$1@dont-email.me>

Show all headers | View raw

Le 20/08/2026 à 14:27, Bertel Lund Hansen a écrit :
> Den 20.08.2026 kl. 14.47 skrev Hibou:
>>
>> I've sometimes wondered about 'the hell of a' vs 'a hell of a', and 
>> have finally typed them into the Ngram Viewer. 'The hell of a' is 
>> older, but 'a hell of a' has become much commoner:
>>
>> <https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph? 
>> content=%28the+hell+of+a*100%29%2Ca+hell+of+a%2C%28the+Hell+of+a*100%29%2Ca+Hell+of+a&year_start=1800&year_end=2022&corpus=en&smoothing=3>
> 
> You're distorting the picture with your multiplying.


I think the multiplication clarifies the story - but if you don't like 
it, take it out. When I post a link to an Ngram, it's not meant to be 
gospel. I fully expect people to play with it - search terms, dates, 
case, dialect, multipliers, and so on.

Back to alt.usage.english | Previous | Next — Previous in thread | Find similar | Unroll thread

Thread

Oh hell! Hibou <vpaereru-unmonitored@yahoo.com.invalid> - 2026-08-20 13:47 +0100
  Re: Oh hell! Bertel Lund Hansen <rundtosset@lundhansen.dk> - 2026-08-20 15:27 +0200
    Re: Oh hell! Hibou <vpaereru-unmonitored@yahoo.com.invalid> - 2026-08-20 15:34 +0100

csiph-web