Going Forward

John Staczek staczekj at T-BIRD.EDU
Sat Mar 11 00:52:58 UTC 2000


Kathleen,

While I cannot tell you tell when this usage of 'going forward' came about,
I can comment that I first began to hear wit with great regularity in late
1997. In mid 1997 I joined the faculty of Thunderbird, The American Graduate
School of International Management (a graduate business school), as a
linguist in the Modern Languages Department. The form was ubiquitous among
senior-level managers in finance and accounting. It is widely used, perhaps
overused, in the sense you indicate, 'in the future', and even to replace
the adjectival use of 'future' or 'next' or 'upcoming' in such forms as 'our
going forward position has to be...' or 'the budget year going forward'.

The language of the B-school, the language of some executive, even
'expert2expert' (compare B2B, or 'business to business' language) is replete
with the form. Accountants seem to prefer it and perhaps that is a trackable
source for the form. You need to see and hear such forms as 'expensing',
'that's a contra tuition revenue', and a whole host of others. My own
collection, with decipherment, is growing.

John
__________
John Staczek
Vice President for Faculty
Thunderbird, The American Graduate School of International Management
Phoenix AZ

----- Original Message -----
From: Kathleen Miller <millerk at NYTIMES.COM>
To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Sent: Friday, March 10, 2000 3:17 PM
Subject: Going Forward


In the following three examples "going forward" seems to be interchangable
with "in the future", it sounds strange to me. Any idea when this came
about?

RCN Launches Service in Hyde Park, Mass.
PR Newswire 3.8.2000

"RCN plans to roll-out the ResiLink bundled packages in every new city or
town the company launches going forward, while also working to offer these
valuable packages to our existing customer base."

(no there aren't any words missing.)

PR Newswire 3.9.2000

"We believe thses exchanges, similar to those we completed in late
February, reflect continued investor confidence in Arch and our growth
outlook going forward."

Reuters English News service
3.8.2000 USA: FOCUS - Oxy buys Permain assests from BP Amoco, Shell.

"The reason is that Altura is not a core asset for BP Amoco or Royal Dutch,
it was more of a legacy that both were grappling with how they should run
it going forward and disposal for each of them was clearly the best option."

Kathleen E. Miller
Research Assistant to William Safire
The New York Times



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