"That being..."
Arnold M. Zwicky
zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU
Mon Jul 3 00:04:20 UTC 2006
On Jun 30, 2006, at 12:10 PM, Wilson Gray wrote:
> I agree with Jon that "long story short" is an oldie. For some reason
> that I'm unable to dig out ot my subconscious, I find "long story
> short" to be basically okay, whereas "as far as" and "that being"...
> are annoying...
something i find delicious here is that all of these clippings show
Strunk's (as in Strunk & White) admonition to "omit needless words"
in action, pretty much ruthlessly: if you can figure it out in
context, you don't have to say it.
there are, of course, plenty more: "time was", "thing is", "case in
point", "point taken", ...
arnold
------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
More information about the Ads-l
mailing list