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Re: [OM] Spotmeters

Subject: Re: [OM] Spotmeters
From: ChrisB <ftog@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sun, 1 Mar 2015 14:40:13 +0000
I agree, Steve, and I admitted to Jez as much.  But the author could have more 
elegantly written, “Pedro was supine in the bottom of the boat”.  It’s small 
point, I know.

Chris

> On 1 Mar 2015, at 13:47, Bob Whitmire <bwhitmire@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> 
> 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 :-)
> 
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