[Ads-l] as such = "as a result; therefore"?

[Jonathan Lighter]

* Another "as such = 'as a result; therefore.'*

*I don't recall if I mentioned previously that I began noticing this usage
in 2002 or 2003, when a student of mine used it regularly - in writing
only, so far as I could tell.*

https://www.universetoday.com/139467/new-model-predicts-that-were-probably-the-only-advanced-civilization-in-the-observable-universe/

" 'This often leads to overconfidence, and worse, the Drake equation is
very sensitive to bias: if you are hopeful a small nudge upwards in several
uncertain estimates will give a hopeful result, and if you are a pessimist
you can easily get a low result.'

" As such, Sanberg, Drexler and Ord looked at the equation’s parameters as
uncertainty ranges."

JL

On Fri, Aug 3, 2007 at 7:02 PM, James Harbeck <jharbeck at sympatico.ca> wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       James Harbeck <jharbeck at SYMPATICO.CA>
> Subject:      Re: as such = "as a result; therefore"?
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> -------------------
>
> >As such, relatively little is known about the life-history
> >requirements of the wolverine."
>
> This to me at first look seems an instance of a relatively common
> misplacing of the modifier on a thematic rather than syntactic basis
> -- meaning "As such, the wolverine is an animal about the
> life-history requirements of which little is known." And the "such"
> is that's it's an animal with a reclisive wilderness life-style etc.
> One of the mixed blessings of editing a lot of prose written by
> people who don't really know how to write (and who tend to use fancy
> phrases to sound important) is that I get fairly familiar with the
> kinds of misplacements and odd consrtuctions that might seem jarring
> to one used to tidy English but are very common in some quarters.
>
> One could also argue, though, that "as such" is being used to mean
> "as a result" or "given that this is the case," and I can't argue
> against that possibility; I think it's the sort of term that many
> people use unanalyzed. I worked with (against) one writer who used
> "to that end" to mean "as a result" -- quite a lot, in fact. So we
> have two possibilities here to my eyes, and I'd want to see more of
> the author's prose before I took a firm side on which is the case.
> But using a modifier that attaches to the focus of the sentence
> rather than what the "rules" of syntax would have it attach to is
> common enough, and I've seen bigger stretches than this.
>
> James Harbeck.
>
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