{"id":8160,"date":"2017-02-11T21:35:13","date_gmt":"2017-02-12T05:35:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/?p=8160"},"modified":"2017-02-11T21:50:29","modified_gmt":"2017-02-12T05:50:29","slug":"other-matters-language-going-forward-upcoming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/2017\/02\/other-matters-language-going-forward-upcoming\/","title":{"rendered":"Other Matters: Language, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Going Forward,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Upcoming\u00e2\u20ac\u009d"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-8161\" src=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/Going-Forward.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"225\" height=\"169\" \/>Diplomats, politicians and business people have taken to salting their language with \u00e2\u20ac\u0153going forward,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d as if it means something. That useless phrase has crept out of official gobbledygook into general use, so that people work it into ordinary conversation, as if they were secretaries of state or CEOS. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred (statistic from a&#8221;\u00a0<em>Rifftides<\/em> staff study), the phrase adds no meaning, no understanding.<\/p>\n<p>How does <em>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Going forward, we will be discussing missile defense with the Russians\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/em> differ from <em>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We will be discussing missile defense with the Russians?&#8221;<\/em> There is no difference except for the meaningless presence of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Going forward.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Folks have been conditioned to believe that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153going forward\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is the equivalent of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153in the future\u00e2\u20ac\u009d or \u00e2\u20ac\u0153from now on.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d It is not. In English, we have verbs to do that kind of work. The phrase is almost always superfluous and annoying.<\/p>\n<p>I would say that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153going forward\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is the new \u00e2\u20ac\u0153upcoming\u00e2\u20ac\u009d except that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153upcoming\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is as omnipresent as ever. Each morning, when the announcer on the local National Public Radio station says, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153If you would like more information about those upcoming concerts\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I think about Harold Ross (1892-1951), the founding editor of <em>The New Yorker<\/em>. Ross issued a memo to his staff. It read,<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153The next writer around here who uses \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcupcoming\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 will be outgoing.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>This is not my first rant on this execrable usage,&#8221;\u00a0(see the <strong>Related<\/strong> item in the lower left corner of this page)&#8221;\u00a0nor is it likely to be the last.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Diplomats, politicians and business people have taken to salting their language with \u00e2\u20ac\u0153going forward,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d as if it means something. That useless phrase has crept out of official gobbledygook into general use, so that people work it into ordinary conversation, as if they were secretaries of state or CEOS. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred (statistic [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-8160","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry","8":"has-post-thumbnail"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8160","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8160"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8160\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}