When we say "never mind that" to mean disregard or don't worry about, is it a verb altogether (a phrasal verb) or is "mind" the verb that's modified by the adverb never? Examples:
Never mind what he told you
Never mind his suggestions
You can say "Mind his suggestions." although that would sound old-fashioned. Is "never mind" just the negation of that with the adverb never?
Best Answer
'Never' is certainly not used with the usual meaning here; 'Never mind what he said to you last week' is very different from 'Never worry about what he said to you'. I'd agree that there is a cohesiveness between 'never' and 'mind'.
In fact, never mind is listed by the dictionaries I've checked in as a 'phrase' or an 'idiom', eg by the Cambridge Dictionary of American Idioms:
I avoid the term 'phrasal verb' as being too ambiguous, and this is different again from what most people using the terms would include as a 'phrasal verb' (* I never mind etc) but this is surely better regarded as a multi-word construction than 'adverb + verb'.