Pre-emptively?

[Joel S. Berson]

I think I discovered this as a by-product of my search.  I looked for
other phrasings, and eventually discarded "[adv.] customary" in favor
of "undoubtedly prevailing" -- although here I indubitably think the
"undoubtedly" does strengthen.

Joel

At 12/20/2006 11:03 AM, you wrote:
>    You guys may be barking up the wrong tree hunting for an adverb
> to modify customary. The search should probably be for a word or
> phrase to substitute for customary but with the strengthening
> effect that is being sought.  E.g., "It is standard
> procedure,"  "It is a routine matter (to do such and such)," "It is
> de rigueur."  I worte an article a while back pointing out that
> adverbs/adverbial phrases can only go so far in increasing the
> degree of an adjective (e.g., "good"), whereupon one must proceed
> to a new word (e.g., great, fabulous, fantastic) or a phrase,
> (e.g., for a baseball player, "a seecond Ty Cobb").  I'm away from
> my office and therefore don't have access to the article or its reference.
>
>Gerald Cohen
>
>________________________________
>
>From: American Dialect Society on behalf of Jonathan Lighter
>Sent: Wed 12/20/2006 9:42 AM
>To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>Subject: Re: Pre-emptively?
>
>
>
>Best: "mad customary."
>
>   JL
>
>Charles Doyle <cdoyle at UGA.EDU> wrote:
>   ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
>Sender: American Dialect Society
>Poster: Charles Doyle
>Subject: Re: Pre-emptively?
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>Notwithstanding all the excellent suggestions here, I still don't
>see what's wrong with plain, old-fashioned "totally customary"--or,
>even better, "way customary."
>
>--Charlie
>_______________________________________________
>
>---- Original message ----
> >Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2006 19:46:58 -0500
> >From: "Joel S. Berson"
> >Subject: Pre-emptively?
> >To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> >
> >I am looking for an adverb that I can use (for example) to precede
> "customary" to give the meaning "so customary that no one would
> ever think of anything else". Pre-emptively? presumptively? Help!
> >
> >Thanks,
> >Joel
>
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