At least

Using "at least" with "or" doesn't seem right to me but I hear it all the time.

Recent examples: "He must be at least 80 or 90 years old". "The temperature will reach at least 34 or 35 degrees tomorrow".

I want to ask, "Well which is it? Make up your mind."

In informal speech, it expresses uncertainty or limited knowledge.

Internal monologue: How old is he? He looks old. Very old. Must be 80 years old, at least. Could be 90, yes. Could be older than that.

Simultaneous speech (i.e., thinking out loud): He must be, uh, at least 80 or, uh, 90 years old.

Purged of meaningless noises: He must be at least 80 or 90 years old.

Even in writing, I would let it pass when the writer is representing a first impression or "thinking out loud."

It's not always a sign of amateurism. A skilled writer might deliberately choose this type of locution in order to efficiently represent a thought process.

>3 spartan:

Surely neither of us looks a day over 55.

And thanks, I think. ;)

Time I updated by picture. :-D

>6 PhaedraB: ??

The 137 of us here get to divvy up all the books, right?

I've been trying to do the math without my calculator and I ran out of fingers and toes.

Only 102 right now. That must give each of us about 980,000. Eeeeck! Where am I going to put them? And someone else can have some of the titles I've run into lately in the Kindle Edition mess.

>7 henkl: Sorry, wrong thread. Posting without sufficient caffeine, or sumthin'

bummer.