"As well you should" &"so you should"

No phantoms:

a. As well you should - 1 clause

b. It is as well you should understand me, Quekett

It is as well (that) - clause 1
you should understand me, Quekett - clause 2

The phantoms I'm referring to are hovering around the venerable old usage "as well you should", which you yourself have called an ellipsis.

I don't think I did. I said:

<But in any case, this "As well you should!", if your analysis is correct, isn't slang: it's an ellipsis.>

i.e. it's an ellipsis in your interpretation; but as my comments show, I don't think your analysis is correct:

<I think of all the definitions [of "as"] in e.g. the OED, this would best fit the rel. pronoun description (i.e. it could best be replaced by "the thing which", "a thing which", "a fact which", etc.). I can't recall an example where an ellipsis has reduced "'tis" to "as". >

<who had grown up in a language continuum where the phrase "as well you should" already existed>

That again is a circular argument. You are saying "the phrase already existed because those writers grew up when the phrase existed".

...

A different question, Quintus: if we were to discover that the phrase had only been recorded from (say) the 1890s, would that still count as "venerable", in your opinion?

Copyright wrote :
>>if we were to discover that the phrase had only been recorded from (say) the 1890s, would that still count as "venerable", in your opinion?


You need to go back to -

Wed Feb 03, 2010 7:20 am GMT

- where quite specifically I gave you an answer for that much, much earlier in this thread ; which is sufficient proof, methinks, that you are flogging this to death "like a Trojan horse".

Thank you for your patience, Quintus. I saw the comment, but wanted confirmation that it still represented your view.

Now on the one hand, you state that the phrase is "venerable", and has an "antiquarian nuance". But elsewhere, you speculate that it "might be a more recent (Victorian) form of 'Tis well you should".

There is a conflict here, since you have also stated that you do not find "the Victorian vintages particularly old or venerable for a word or phrase's origin".

How would you resolve that contradiction?

...

Returning to the original question: if you maintain that "As well you should" is equivalent not only to "'Tis well you should", but also to "And so you should!", as you said earlier, you must also believe that "And so you should!" is the equivalent of "'Tis well you should".

Is that really the case? You see no difference in the implications or functions of the two phrases?

>>How would you resolve that contradiction?>>

There is no contradiction, my dear Copyright.

'Tis venerability on a sliding scale, and there's an end on 't !