Hadn’t thought of “as of”. I may be an offender. When I use it, which is
rarely, it’s mostly a time thing, as in “as of last Thursday, we’d spent only
$45 on gasoline for the week.” I don’t think I’ve heard “as of yet” anywhere,
but I’m not always paying attention. It’s difficult to listen to the daily
brutal assaults on language all around us.
I might be able to overlook the use of ricochet in that sense as a kind bending
of one meaning to illustrate another. Boats certainly don’t ricochet, but the
image of one slamming from one rock to another is rather fanciful. Of course,
if you’ve ever _seen_ a boat hit rocks, you know they don’t do anything that
even approximates a ricochet. They tend to slam and bounce and fall to pieces
as they either sink or get flung up on the shore. Depending on the size of the
boat, it seems a slow-motion event. Okay, I change my mind. Silly writer! Boats
don’t ricochet, even when driven by poetic license.
But “lying supine” is beyond the pale. At least they didn’t say “laying
supine.” Give thanks for small favors. <g>
--Bob Whitmire
Certified Neanderthal
On Mar 1, 2015, at 2:08 AM, ChrisB <ftog@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> I look forward to your finding it, Bob. One of the worst assaults on English
> by the military (mainly the US military) is the “as of” phrase. Originally
> intended to give a precise timescale (in the UK accountants used to use “as
> at”), it has strayed into everyday use and gives rise to the foul “as of
> yet”. It’s foul because “yet” means exactly the same thing, but the
> expansion of our language with unnecessary prepositions (whether or not the
> turn up at the end of a clause or sentence :-)) ruins the simplicity and
> elegance of many of our words.
>
> On a slightly different thread of linguisticts, yesterday I listened to a
> pretty good radio play as I was driving, enjoying it until . . . I heard the
> phrase “a boat ricocheting against the rocks of the reef” (completely
> ignoring the meaning of ‘ricochet’) and then a minute or so later, “he was
> lying supine in the bottom of the boat”; how else would he lie, or what is
> supine but lying?
>
> I managed to forget these errors and enjoyed the rest of the story :-)
--
_________________________________________________________________
Options: http://lists.thomasclausen.net/mailman/listinfo/olympus
Archives: http://lists.thomasclausen.net/mailman/private/olympus/
Themed Olympus Photo Exhibition: http://www.tope.nl/
|