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From: gdvsmit@watrose.UUCP (Riel Smit)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: "Presently" ?= "Now"
Message-ID: <8204@watrose.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 17-Oct-86 10:03:14 EDT
Article-I.D.: watrose.8204
Posted: Fri Oct 17 10:03:14 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 18-Oct-86 23:47:35 EDT
References: <3489@utcsri.UUCP>
Reply-To: gdvsmit@watrose.UUCP (Riel Smit)
Distribution: net
Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 17

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

My Chambers Twentieth Century Dictionary (1972), a "British"
dictionary, says about presently:

   at present, now (obs. or Scot. and U.S.): for the time being (obs.):
   at once (obs.): before long: directly, immediately, necessarily.

Probably because I am not a Scottsman, nor an American, I use it to mean 
"before long".