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 :-)
Chris
> On 28 Feb 15, at 16:08, Bob Whitmire <bwhitmire@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> One way as I wandered back into my barracks at my last posting, I stopped to
> peruse the company bulletin board, as we were required to do twice a day, and
> I saw posted a set of instructions that seemed to me to perfectly encapsulate
> the opacity of military writing, and so with great caution to make sure I was
> no observed, I took it down and stowed it away amongst my personal papers to
> take home with me. I hope someday to find it again, if only to see if I still
> can understand it.
--
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