as such = "as a result; therefore"?

[Jonathan Lighter]

For Joel's interpretation to work, the "such" would have to refer to either "lack of familiarity" or "medium-sized carnivore," neither of which would make much sense.

  Another possible, though equally erroneous meaning, might be something like "moreover."

  Again, we don't know what the writer had in mind. But the structure of the sentence, as well as the limited number of logical relationships between the sentences, seems to force a nonstandard interpretation of "as such."  The sense "therefore" has been attested elsewhere.

  JL

"Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET> wrote:
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Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: "Joel S. Berson"
Subject: Re: as such = "as a result; therefore"?
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Might "as such" have been a reference to the wolverine? "As [the
wolverine is] a reclusive, low-population, economically unimportant
carnivore, relatively little is known ..."? I've read and heard
similar constructs, although they bother me also.

Joel

At 8/3/2007 01:17 PM, Lon L. wrote:
>Talk of sheep, goats, and wombats brought to mind this interesting
>ex. of "as such," which in the light of earlier discussion seems to
>me rather ambiguous.
>
> From a leaflet published by the Wolverine Foundation out in Idaho:
>
> "Our lack of familiarity with this medium-sized carnivore is
> largely due to its reclusive wilderness life-style, low population
> densities, and a general lack of economic importance. As such,
> relatively little is known about the life-history requirements of
> the wolverine."
>
> To me, this first looked like a semantic error, with "as such"
> functioning as a synonym for "therefore," an innovation, as has
> been noted, worthy of lamenting and gnashing of teeth. Conceivably,
> however, it is just a misplaced modifier. The writer may have intended to say,
>
> "Relatively little is known about the life-history requirements,
> as such, of the wolverine."
>
> The reason I mention this is that the undeniable existence of _as
> such_ "therefore" may be partly explained by such seemingly
> ambiguous exx.. Even if the writer intended the phrase to mean
> "therefore" (which the drift of the paragraph certainly suggests to
> me is the case), sentences exhibiting initial "as such" may have
> helped popularize, or even create, the erroneous new sense.
>
> JL
>
>
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