Teacher Discussion Forums

Again on the matter of 'ever'.

Is 'ever since' only more emphatic than 'since' or are there more implications?

Is I have lived here ever since 1984 acceptable? I guess not, but why?

José

Pure intuition this, but I suspect "ever since" appears more often in sentence-initial than mid-sentence position.

Your "...ever since 1984" sentence might be grammatically acceptable, but it is perhaps "overkill" in stylistic terms (i.e. "since" by itself is sufficient to convey the intended meaning).

I feel I would more likely use it to emphasize a really long stretch of time.