Readers of Robert McCloskey’s Homer Price stories may remember “Ever-So-Much-More-So,” the colorless, odorless, tasteless powder that makes anything more intensely what it is. (Don’t get it mixed up with your iocane.)
For what it’s worth, here’s the Google Ngram graph of the phrase “ever so slowly,” suggesting that it has never been more in fashion.
Is it? I thought we had established it’s both in British English and US English.
For me, US, it’s a perfectly normal sounding construction to my ears, and I have used it on occasion without trying to convey any type of “quaint” vibe. Just looking through my emails, I see several instances where it is used: “ever so slightly” (in reference to adjusting a lens focus), “ever so delicious,” “staggered ever so slightly.”
This video popped up for me today as a Facebook Reel, using “ever so” as quaint and British.
I don’t know why but ‘ever so x’ reminds me of Des. Pa. Cit-o, the hit reggaeton song from 2017. I think it’s the rhythmic meter but Despacito also means softly or slowly so maybe I subconsciously linked them?