status quo = 'situation'

[Joel S. Berson]

At 3/18/2011 04:35 PM, victor steinbok wrote:
>I don't see "situation" either. Perhaps they meant "status" rather
>than "status quo", or "balance of power", which is, more or less,
>stalemate. Either way, the reference is to some aspect of the
>_present_condition_. So it's not just "situation", but "the current
>situation", which is not as far off the traditional interpretation as
>Jon initially posted.

That was my reading too -- the "current status", "current situation",
"status that exists now". -- or as the OED puts it, "The existing
state of affairs".

Joel


>VS-)
>
>On Fri, Mar 18, 2011 at 1:43 PM, Dan Goncharoff <thegonch at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > I respectfully disagree.
> >
> > If the analyst had written, "We are facing the possibility of the
> status quo
> > becoming entrenched...", I doubt we would be having this conversation.
> >
> > I read "We may be facing the possibility of an entrenched status quo..." as
> > meaning the same thing.
> >
> > DanG
> >
> > On Fri, Mar 18, 2011 at 1:21 PM, Jonathan Lighter
> <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>wrote:
> >
> >>
> >> I think the issue is what "means" means.
> >>
> >> The speaker chose to say "status quo" when the obvious choice for most of
> >> u=
> >> s
> >> (i.e., me) should have been "situation" or "long-term situation," etc.
> >>
> >> On the basis of the evidence, that's what he "meant."
> >>
> >> While it may be true that the kind of sitch he's talking about could also
> >> b=
> >> e
> >> described as a "stalemate," "status quo" would not *mean* "stalemate" in a
> >> dictionary sense except in
> >> statements such as:
> >>
> >> 1. *Nobody's winning! It's a status quo!
> >>
> >> Now there certainly are statements such as the following, in which "status
> >> quo" *refers* to a stalemate:
> >>
> >> 2. "What's been happening on the Western Front the past four years?"
> >> "Nothing much. Status quo."
> >>
> >> In 2, "status quo" means 'an existing situation that hasn't changed,'
> >> which=
> >> ,
> >> in this context, implies an actual stalemate.Status quo," under certain
> >> circumstances, can allude to a stalemate, but I don't believe it ever
> >> *means* "stalemate," because I don't believe that *anyone* who would say 2
> >> would also say 1.
> >>
> >> Unless they were very weird. So "status quo" doesn't "mean" stalemate.
> >>
> >> JL
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org