Fall to sleep

[nq:1]Hi all Anyone have any views on "fall asleep" vs. "fall to sleep"? I always use "fall asleep" (I am ... though I have known British English speakers who use it. Is "fall to sleep" regional maybe? Commoner in the US?[/nq]
Can't say I've noticed it. "Go to sleep" or "fall asleep" are more usual.
Google (UK pages) gives:
"fall to sleep" : 837
"fall asleep" : 102,000
"go to s

[nq:1]Is "fall to sleep" regional maybe? Commoner in the US?[/nq]
I can't recall hearing it, but it wouldn't surprise me. It sounds like a mixture of "go to sleep" & "fall asleep". Such mixtures, I suppose, have always been common in speech, and they have been getting into print a lot in recent years.

Joe Fineman joe (Email Removed)

[nq:1]Hi all Anyone have any views on "fall asleep" vs. "fall to sleep"? I always use "fall asleep" (I am ... though I have known British English speakers who use it. Is "fall to sleep" regional maybe? Commoner in the US?[/nq]
Patsy Cline used to "fall to pieces", each time she saw you again.

[nq:1]Hi all Anyone have any views on "fall asleep" vs. "fall to sleep"? I always use "fall asleep" (I am ... though I have known British English speakers who use it. Is "fall to sleep" regional maybe? Commoner in the US?[/nq]
I think "fall asleep" is the only standard expression in the US. I don't think I've previously encountered "fall to sleep", although it seems like it might be an archais

[nq:2]Hi all Anyone have any views on "fall asleep" vs. ... Is "fall to sleep" regional maybe? Commoner in the US?[/nq]
[nq:1]Can't say I've noticed it. "Go to sleep" or "fall asleep" are more usual. Google (UK pages) gives: "fall to sleep" : 837 "fall asleep" : 102,000 "go to sleep" : 103,000[/nq]
"Falling to sleep" generates over 9000 hits. It seems more lyrical than common speech.
M

[nq:2]Hi all Anyone have any views on "fall asleep" vs. ... Is "fall to sleep" regional maybe? Commoner in the US?[/nq]
[nq:1]Patsy Cline used to "fall to pieces", each time she saw you again.[/nq]
She could hardly say "fall apiece," could she?

[nq:2]Patsy Cline used to "fall to pieces", each time she saw you again.[/nq]
[nq:1]She could hardly say "fall apiece," could she?[/nq]
Only if she were a referee of professional wrestling.

Or do they have those two-out-of-three matches anymore?

Liebs

[nq:1]"Falling to sleep" generates over 9000 hits.[/nq]
Still comparatively uncommon though "falling asleep" is over 645,000.
I wouldn't at all be surprised if "falls to sleep" were dialect, but it might sometimes be the case that "falls to sleep" indicates a combination of, or a confusion or hesitation between, "falls asleep" and "goes to sleep".
[nq:1]It seems more =ADlyrical than co

> Anyone know offhand the history of words such as "asleep", "awake",
[nq:1]"abed", etc? Perhaps the "a-" prefix in these was originally prepositional?[/nq]
Certainly: you could argue it still is. Variants used to exist: on sleep, on live, etc.
Mike.

[nq:1]Perhaps, in a rarefied context, where there's no suspicion of unidiomatic language or dialect perhaps, in such a context, ... offhand the history of words such as "asleep", "awake", "abed", etc? Perhaps the "a-" prefix in these was originally prepositional?[/nq]
M-W just says it's a prefix:
Main Entry: 1 a-
Function: prefix
Etymology: Middle English, from Old English