status quo = 'situation'

[victor steinbok]

I'd be the last person to complain about someone seeing idiosyncrasies
where others may not--I post this kind of stuff all the time (and get
berated by Ron Butters). I won't dispute that there is a difference
between the cited use and the classic definition--I just don't believe
that the difference is quite as vast as you suggested. Basically, in
the Reuters example--as in the example you give below (below in this
message--above metaphorically)--"quo" is superfluous. But it's not
particularly destructive and the intended meaning is clearly related
to the dictionary one, even if it's not identical. It may be a drift
or it may be one-off.

And I would not want to substitute my judgement for yours.
Disagreement is not necessarily criticism--descriptivism demands
stochastic evaluations, not static ones. (I am sure someone will
object to my use of "stochastic" and "static".)

VS-)

On Fri, Mar 18, 2011 at 5:26 PM, Jonathan Lighter
<wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> You may be right, Victor. But surely my sense that there's something very
> odd about the usage isn't entirely idiosyncratic?
>
> Ideally a dictionary definition should be completely substitutable for the
> word defined.  "The possibility of an entrenched existing situation"?  I
> don't think so. "Status" would  work - but would be just as peculiar.
>
> To me, "What's the status quo?" is almost ungrammatical. "What was the
> status quo?" is fine.
>
> The "status quo" seems usually to be something you either want to get back
> to or get away from, not something that merely exists. In my Western Front
> example, "status quo" makes sense not because it means the "existing
> situation," period; it implies that the situation is the same as it was
> *before,* in this case for the past three years.  "An entrenched status
> quo," at least in the context of the quotation, refers to a future
> possibility rather than anything in the past (from the perspective of now,
> of course).
>
> Whether or not I've identified the specific problem correctly, I still
> believe that the exampled usage is semantically odd, and that the OED
> definition is overly broad. (Cf., perhaps, the subtleties of "anymore.")
>
> JL

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