Anonymous  +  829068 Tue, 21 Jul 09 11:19 PM Is the idiom "in forever" grammatically correct? "I haven't seen you in forever."   It seems as though it should be:   "I haven't seen you for ever."      For some reason this bothers me, and I don't know why. It seems like there is either a double preposition, or a preposition with no object, or maybe it's just my imagination because EVERYONE seems to use this expression except for me.      Do any educated people out there know the answer to this? Anonymous Prepositions, Idioms, Expressions

	MrPedantic  +  829085 Tue, 21 Jul 09 11:43 PM Hello Anon,   1. I haven't seen you in forever.   I would take this as a jocular variant of:   2. I haven't seen you in an age [or some similar time-phrase].   For "an age", which is already hyperbolic, the speaker substitutes "forever", which piles hyperbole on hyperbole, and raises it to the power of impossibility.   Cf.   3. It took me forever.   (Clearly it didn't.)   All the best,   MrP MrPedantic Joined on Tue, Oct 12 2004 Veteran Member 12,592 ...opella forensis / adducit febris... Hyperboles

	MrPedantic  +  829138 Wed, 22 Jul 09 12:32 AM Grammatically, I think it can only be "correct", since "forever" can be a noun, as in:   1. It took me forever.   (Cf. "It took me an hour".)   Semantically, you might say that it's not quite right; but presumably that slight not-quite-right-ness is the source of its appeal (for those who use it).   Best wishes,   MrP MrPedantic Nouns