This thread got me thinking about two other word usages I’ve been hearing lately that grate my fine tuned ears: “barely” to mean “recently” (as in “I just barely upgraded to Windows 98”), and pronouncing “across” as “acrost” (“Lay that baguette acrost those two tables”). I used to live on the east coast, and didn’t hear this until I “barely” moved to Southern Cali.
I like to never assume I’m right, though. Could these be acceptable usages I’m just not aware of?
Both sound off to my ears. Especially “acrost”. I wouldn’t consider either of those to be acceptable usage.
I think Rich Hall’s Sniglets once defined “acroster” as someone who puts t’s on the end of words. It isn’t just acrost, there’s also cousint, and probably others.
Jay
Final “st” sounds in place of just a final “s” sound is heard more commonly in rural areas, where, for example, you might here words like “once,” “twice,” and “use” (noun) prounounced as “wunst,” tweist," “yoost” respectively.
And I’ve never thought of “barely” as meaning “recently” in the sense you’ve indicated, but more like “very immediate past,” a little more recent that just “recently.” Merriam-Webster shows “barely” as a synonym of “scarcely,” with the same meaning.
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The use of “barely” to mean “recently” is a new one on me. It is either a new usage or a pretty local one.
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“Acrost” is definitely a yokelism.
Dictionary defines barely as:
bare·ly adv. 1. By a very little; hardly: could barely see the road in the fog. 2. In a scanty manner; sparsely: a barely furnished room.
Acrost is not a word that is recognized by the dictionary, so as far as I am concerned, it doesn’t exist in the English language.
“Barely” to mean “recently”? I don’t think I’ve ever heard that one, but it would probably make me chuckle. Is it possible that these people are constructing this meaning from phrases such as, “hardly a year ago” - “barely a year ago”? Seems possible.
Now for “Acrost”, Hmmm…
I (aparently incorrectly) assumed that these people were pronouncing it “acrossed” - adding an ‘ed’ ending. Adding an “ed” ending to a preposition (or any ending to a preposition for that matter *) was bad enough, but at least I saw their (incorrect) method of construction. “Acrost” is just plain silly.
*Of course, there is one preposition in common usage (sort of) which does have an ending added to it: “offed”, as in; “Yous guys remember dat pesky little fella?, well, I barely offed him and good yesta’day.” 
From m-w.com:
Main Entry: bare·ly
Function: adverb
Date: before 12th century
1 : in a meager manner : PLAINLY <a barely furnished room>
2 : SCARCELY, HARDLY <barely enough money for lunch>
Main Entry: scarce·ly
Function: adverb
Date: 14th century
1 a : by a narrow margin : only just <had scarcely rung the bell when the door flew open – Agnes S. Turnbull> b : almost not <could scarcely see for the fog>
2 a : certainly not <could scarcely interfere> b : probably not <there could scarcely have been found a leader better equipped – V. L. Parrington>
I had just barely finished installing the new motherboard when the phone rang and my boss told me it was the wrong one.
Oh man… I have to confess however I refuse to change.
I am an acrost’er. My wife points it out all the time to me when I do it. I stubbornly refuse to let go of the last remaining Pittsburgh-ese in my vocabulary.
Oh, and I do not add a ‘t’ to anything else. I do insert ‘r’ into a word or two, such as warsh for wash.
MeanJoe - Yinzer for life.
I hear the word “barely” used in a similar manner as the word “recently” quite often. A wild guess would be that it is more common in the hispanic community. It seems to always be used with the word “just.”
“You want to leave already? We just barely got here!” Sounds like common usage to my ears and it seems to fit the definition of “barely” if you consider “scarcely” as a definition.
Here in The Great Midwest, acrost is pretty common…as well as warsh, Mean Joe. Pretty bad when you have to go warsh the deeshes at the neighbor’s house acrost the street. After you’re done, you have to go ta’home.
Better than warshing them in the crik (creek).