But for (from ID TV)

[Joel S. Berson]

The simplest explanation I can think of (truthfully, the first,
because I'm too lazy to try to find a second) is that "but for"
replaced "only for" (meaning "only by, only because of, merely by") --

"It was only for a random Internet search that the two [killer and
victim] were brought together."

Joel

At 5/22/2012 03:50 PM, Hunter, Lynne R CIV SPAWARSYSCEN-PACIFIC, 71700 wrote:
>You're certainly right about people getting things backwards. But while
>Dr. Phil's use of "predecessor" (instead of "successor") could possibly
>be excused as a slip of the tongue (despite his having repeated it
>several times) or maybe as just a defect in vocabulary, the ID TV
>example presents a logical tangle that I'm still trying to unravel. It
>wasn't that I was expecting "kept apart" rather than "brought together"
>but that I was taken aback by the plugging of "but for" into an
>affirmative cause-effect construction (i.e., it was only a random
>Internet search that brought the two together). My experience with
>"but-for" has been limited to contrary-to-fact conditions, as in "But
>for [if not for, except for] a random Internet search, the two [killer
>and victim] would never have been brought together" or "But for a random
>Internet search, the two would have remained forever apart," or as in
>your example "There but for fortune go you or I."
>
>Where are you, Daniel, if I may ask, that you get Letterman on "two
>weeks delay"?
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf
>Of David A. Daniel
>Sent: Tuesday, May 22, 2012 11:05 AM
>To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>Subject: Re: But for (from ID TV)
>
>---------------------- Information from the mail header
>-----------------------
>        American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>Poster:       "David A. Daniel" <dad at POKERWIZ.COM>
>Subject:      Re: But for (from ID TV)
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>-------
>
>It's backwards, eh? "There but for fortune go you or I" indicates
>fortune
>intervened to keep something bad from happening. Not sure what that TV
>quote
>indicates, though it seems that someone is trying to say that a killer
>and
>victim were brought together, rather than kept apart, by a random
>internet
>search. Yes? People get stuff backwards a lot. I just watched a
>Letterman,
>with Dr. Phil as guest. (We get Letterman on two weeks delay here.)
>Letterman was saying that he figures if he is screwing up his 8-year-old
>son, it won't be his problem because he's old and will be dead. "It'll
>be
>the stepfather's problem." Dr. Phil twice used "predecessor" to refer to
>the
>stepfather, the one coming AFTER Letterman. "You mean if you screw up
>your
>kid now it will be your predecessor's problem?" After the first time, I
>kept
>waiting for him to correct himself, but then he said it again!
>DAD
>
>
>
>Poster:       "Hunter, Lynne R CIV SPAWARSYSCEN-PACIFIC, 71700"
>               <lynne.hunter at NAVY.MIL>
>Subject:      But for (from ID TV)
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>----
>---
>
>"It was but for a random Internet search that the two [killer and
>victim] were brought together."
>
>
>Lynne Hunter
>
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