as such = "as a result; therefore"?

[Joel S. Berson]

Might "as such" have been a reference to the wolverine?  "As [the
wolverine is] a reclusive, low-population, economically unimportant
carnivore, relatively little is known ..."?  I've read and heard
similar constructs, although they bother me also.

Joel

At 8/3/2007 01:17 PM, Lon L. wrote:
>Talk of sheep, goats, and wombats brought to mind this interesting
>ex. of "as such," which in the light of earlier discussion seems to
>me rather ambiguous.
>
>   From a leaflet published by the Wolverine Foundation out in Idaho:
>
>   "Our lack of familiarity with this medium-sized carnivore is
> largely due to its reclusive wilderness life-style, low population
> densities, and a general lack of economic importance. As such,
> relatively little is known about the life-history requirements of
> the wolverine."
>
>   To me, this first looked like a semantic error, with "as such"
> functioning as a synonym for "therefore," an innovation, as has
> been noted, worthy of lamenting and gnashing of teeth. Conceivably,
> however, it is just a misplaced modifier. The writer may have intended to say,
>
>   "Relatively little is known about the life-history requirements,
> as such, of the wolverine."
>
>   The reason I mention this is that the undeniable existence of _as
> such_  "therefore" may be partly explained by such seemingly
> ambiguous exx..  Even if the writer intended the phrase to mean
> "therefore" (which the drift of the paragraph certainly suggests to
> me is the case), sentences exhibiting initial "as such" may have
> helped popularize, or even create, the erroneous new sense.
>
>   JL
>
>
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