status quo = 'situation'

[Jonathan Lighter]

One-off or not, things like this just leap out at me.

It could be the start of something big.

JL

On Fri, Mar 18, 2011 at 7:17 PM, victor steinbok <aardvark66 at gmail.com>wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       victor steinbok <aardvark66 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: status quo = 'situation'
>
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>
> I'd be the last person to complain about someone seeing idiosyncrasies
> where others may not--I post this kind of stuff all the time (and get
> berated by Ron Butters). I won't dispute that there is a difference
> between the cited use and the classic definition--I just don't believe
> that the difference is quite as vast as you suggested. Basically, in
> the Reuters example--as in the example you give below (below in this
> message--above metaphorically)--"quo" is superfluous. But it's not
> particularly destructive and the intended meaning is clearly related
> to the dictionary one, even if it's not identical. It may be a drift
> or it may be one-off.
>
> And I would not want to substitute my judgement for yours.
> Disagreement is not necessarily criticism--descriptivism demands
> stochastic evaluations, not static ones. (I am sure someone will
> object to my use of "stochastic" and "static".)
>
> VS-)
>
> On Fri, Mar 18, 2011 at 5:26 PM, Jonathan Lighter
> <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > You may be right, Victor. But surely my sense that there's something very
> > odd about the usage isn't entirely idiosyncratic?
> >
> > Ideally a dictionary definition should be completely substitutable for
> the
> > word defined.  "The possibility of an entrenched existing situation"?  I
> > don't think so. "Status" would  work - but would be just as peculiar.
> >
> > To me, "What's the status quo?" is almost ungrammatical. "What was the
> > status quo?" is fine.
> >
> > The "status quo" seems usually to be something you either want to get
> back
> > to or get away from, not something that merely exists. In my Western
> Front
> > example, "status quo" makes sense not because it means the "existing
> > situation," period; it implies that the situation is the same as it was
> > *before,* in this case for the past three years.  "An entrenched status
> > quo," at least in the context of the quotation, refers to a future
> > possibility rather than anything in the past (from the perspective of
> now,
> > of course).
> >
> > Whether or not I've identified the specific problem correctly, I still
> > believe that the exampled usage is semantically odd, and that the OED
> > definition is overly broad. (Cf., perhaps, the subtleties of "anymore.")
> >
> > JL
>
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