"soon before"?

[sagehen]

>On May 18, 2005, at 1:20 PM, Alison Murie wrote:
>
>> Seymour Hersh in  /Chain of Command/ on pp. 355-6 writes:
>> "....security official said in an interview _soon before_ the
>> transfer of
>> sovereignty that..."  [my emphasis].
>> This looks & sounds very odd to me;  I would expect _shortly
>> before_here.
>
>"shortly" is fine, but "soon" sounds perfectly good to me here.  in
>wh questions of extent, with "how", "soon" is very common: "How soon
>before the game did you arrive?"
>
>outside of contexts with "how", "soon before"  is common, though not
>nearly as connon as "shortly before" or "soon after".  in raw google
>web hits:
>
>   --> "soon before" -how: ca. 31,900
>   "soon after" -how: ca. 2,670,000
>
>   "shortly before": ca. 2,960,000
>   "shortly after": ca. 11,400,000
>
>here, "after" has the edge over "before".  modified by "just" or
>"long", however, "before" has the edge, though not as big an edge:
>
>   "just before": ca. 9,770,000
>   "just after": ca. 4,440,000
>
>   "long before": ca. 8,510,000
>   "long after": ca. 5,260,000
>
>(overall, "before" and "after" are roughly the same in frequency,
>894m and 882m.)
>
>admittedly, "soon before" (marked with an accusatory arrow above) is
>very low compared to the other combinations.  so there does seem to
>be some dispreference.  or even the possibility that some speakers
>have an odd gap in the pattern of modifying "before"/"after" by
>"soon"/"shortly"/"just"/"long".
>
>in general, i have no idea where these asymmetries come from.
>
>arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu)
~~~~~~~
I daresay I've come across this before without particularly noting it, but
it happened to be divided at the turn of the page which made me go back &
forth a few times to be sure I hadn't turned two pages at once, which
called its seeming unfamiliarity to my attention.  My own practice would
exhibit your "odd gap."
AM


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