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From: crowl@rochester.ARPA (Lawrence Crowl)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: "Presently" ?= "Now"
Message-ID: <21680@rochester.ARPA>
Date: Thu, 16-Oct-86 11:33:15 EDT
Article-I.D.: rocheste.21680
Posted: Thu Oct 16 11:33:15 1986
Date-Received: Thu, 16-Oct-86 22:48:26 EDT
References: <3489@utcsri.UUCP>
Reply-To: crowl@rochtest.UUCP (Lawrence Crowl)
Distribution: net
Organization: U of Rochester, CS Dept, Rochester, NY
Lines: 21

In article <3489@utcsri.UUCP> utflis!chai@utcsri.UUCP (Henry Chai) writes:

)I read somewhere that "presently" does not mean "now", but rather
)"soon" (as in "He'll be along presently".)  However, I still see
)everyone else use it as if it means now.  So I looked it up in
)several dictionaries, and found THREE definitions for it:
)1. now
)2. soon
)3. at once (archaic)
)
)I guess most people nowadays have only the "now" definition in mind.
)I try to avoid it (by using "at present" if I have to.)  What do
)you people out there think?

Were you by any chance reading a British publication?  My understanding is
that "now" is an American definition and "soon" is a British definition.
Perhaps someone from Britain could speak up?
-- 
  Lawrence Crowl		716-275-5766	University of Rochester
			crowl@rochester.arpa	Computer Science Department
 ...!{allegra,decvax,seismo}!rochester!crowl	Rochester, New York,  14627