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Path: utzoo!watmath!watnot!watrose!rgdutton
From: rgdutton@watrose.UUCP (Rob Dutton)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: "Presently" ?= "Now"
Message-ID: <8209@watrose.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 20-Oct-86 22:03:25 EDT
Article-I.D.: watrose.8209
Posted: Mon Oct 20 22:03:25 1986
Date-Received: Tue, 21-Oct-86 23:48:00 EDT
References: <3489@utcsri.UUCP>
Reply-To: rgdutton@watrose.UUCP (Rob Dutton)
Distribution: net
Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 36
Summary: 

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?
>--
>              Henry Chai ( guest on suran@utcsri )
>        {utzoo,ihnp4,allegra,decwrl}!utcsri!utflis!chai
>                       chai%utflis@TORONTO
>           "Do *YOU* like grouper fish?" - Urael Punv



I guess I tend to use "presently" as meaning "now", at least most of 
the time.  I seem to recall the word being used to mean "soon" in some 
literature we studied in high school (Thomas Hardy,...) though.

I hear that in Iceland the government has some committee set up to 
monitor the day-to-day use/development of their language, to ensure
that it doesn't change in any undesirable way.  The Icelandic language
currently (presently?) differs very litle from that spoken in the days
of the Vikings.  Perhaps our federal government should set up some
task force to study the possibility of monitoring the (Canadian)  
English and French languages... but by the time the report was published,
the languages would have evolved too much!

                                 Rob Dutton
                                 rgdutton@watrose