A language learners’ forum

I find "in as many years" to be very expressive and compact. If you say something more specific such as "in three years", you may be implying three consecutive years. But the events may have have occurred as three 1-year events, separated by many years. Or some people may interpret it differently. "in as many years" is very suitable-for-purpose, being a generalisation that is not meant to be too specific. I like it.

tommus wrote:I find "in as many years" to be very expressive and compact. If you say something more specific such as "in three years", you may be implying three consecutive years. But the events may have have occurred as three 1-year events, separated by many years. Or some people may interpret it differently. "in as many years" is very suitable-for-purpose, being a generalisation that is not meant to be too specific. I like it.

In as many years seems pretty specific to me, clearly indicating a consecutive period.
Sorry if I've misunderstood your point.

Cainntear wrote:In as many years seems pretty specific to me, clearly indicating a consecutive period.

Yes, having now thought about it again, I agree that it does imply consecutive. I like the expression and I see it often in print, but I don't very often hear anyone say it, unless they are reading the news, etc.

embici wrote:"On a go-forward basis" or "going forward" instead of "from now on". Those and other examples of corporate speak permeating everyday language annoy me.

Although I don't think it's very elegant, I don't really have an issue with "going forward(s)" in most circumstances and it has a slightly different connotation than "from now on", at least to me. The former implies "looking ahead (to the future)" or "this is how we are going to (make) progress" (e.g. "Going forward(s), we will be increasing our funding of wind farms"), while the latter implies that something is beginning now or that a specific change is being made (e.g. "from now on this will not be tolerated"). It is a tad over used though, and I would note that most of the "acceptable" circumstances I can think of are either corporate or political.

EDIT: It just occurred to me that the difference in implication/connotation may actually be the problem, as it can be (and probably is) used to imply progress, positivity etc when that isn't warranted. If that's the case then I agree with you.

I don't recall ever hearing "on a go-forward basis" before, but if I had it would probably annoy me much more than "going forward": I find it really ugly and it doesn't seem to communicate anything that "going forward" does not.

Like, for those of us who "like" to criticize the overuse of "like" might "like" to look again.

Here is an interesting bit of research at the University of Victoria in Canada about the use of "like" way back in history.

Like, don't blame 'like' on kids these days, says sociolinguist

More and more I am seeing "based off of". I have to correct this in several student papers in almost every assignment.

I watch lots of esports and the casters seem to have forgotten the phrases "so far" and "against". I think they're trying to spice their game up, but saying "thus far" every ten seconds sounds really jarring. They use "versus" for "against", which I can understand because the shorthand is "1v1", "2v2", etc. but deary me does it sound clumsy.

"They haven't thus far been able to figure out anything that would work versus the other team."

Henkkles wrote:I watch lots of esports and the casters seem to have forgotten the phrases "so far" and "against". I think they're trying to spice their game up, but saying "thus far" every ten seconds sounds really jarring. They use "versus" for "against", which I can understand because the shorthand is "1v1", "2v2", etc. but deary me does it sound clumsy.

"They haven't thus far been able to figure out anything that would work versus the other team."

That doesn't sound like US sportscasters. Here they don't know the grammar to make a conditional statement, and instead present their counterfactuals in the present tense. E.g.: "If Manu doesn't put so much spin on the ball, Kawhi catches it and makes the basket."

I just submitted a thread dedicated to complaining about the formal/informal use in romance language not knowing a thread was already created for this.


Anyways, as an english native it makes me want to pull my hair out when I'm grinding through the very tedious process of learning a language, trying to speak confidently (when I feel stupid knowing i'm making mistakes all over the place) and then I accidentely use ustedes/vous with someone I already know because that's what one typically drills in assimil/pimsleur. It's so annoying by how big a deal the colleague makes of it. It weighs heavily on my "speaking confidence"

Native English speakers who regularly mix up lose and loose.