Timely as an Adverb
Ariadne
Around my office, there has been an outbreak of sentences such as "The
work was done timely." I don't know why, but hearing it makes me
shudder every time.
I always thought "timely" was only an adjective, like "ugly." Am I
wrong?
Liz
Charles
End...@aol.com (Ariadne) wrote:
>I always thought "timely" was only an adjective, like "ugly." Am I
>wrong?
Dear Liz,
Although one of the listings in RHUD2 does show "timely" as an adverb,
it precedes it with "Archaic." Perhaps you should ask your fellow
employees who use it how old they really are.
Cheers.
CAL
=================================================
= I reserve the right to diagram your sentence =
= without necessarily having to commute it. =
=================================================
http://www.pacificnet.net/~charlesl
Michael B. Quinion
In article: <4ogtjg$j...@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu> End...@aol.com
> Around my office, there has been an outbreak of sentences such as "The
> work was done timely." I don't know why, but hearing it makes me
> shudder every time.
Ahem, that might not be a shudder, it could be an involuntary movement
of appreciation upon encountering the most recent example of the strong
American tendency to strip the language down to its pithy fundamentals.
This counterbalances its equally strong tendency to inflate it with
unnecessary sequences of words ("at this point in time") which huddle
together like California tourists caught in an unseasonable (or even
untimely) May rainstorm.
Why waste time with phrases like "in a timely manner", "soon enough",
"in time", when you can abbreviate to one word, and sound just a little
bit erudite at the same time? We should reserve our shudders until we
start to hear sentences like "Timely, she dealt with the morning mail".
This is also an illustration that usages which appear to be new are
often resurgences of older ones. OED2 has many examples of 'timely'
used as an adverb, the first from about the year 1000. Though the
sense I have assumed above is marked as obsolete, the adverbial sense
glossed there as "in due season, at the right or a fortunate time;
seasonably; opportunely as regards time" is not so marked, though I
suspect that is because the entry has not been recently revised.
However, it may be that the word is being used to mean 'expeditiously',
which would be an entirely new sense -- the context doesn't make this
clear.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Michael B Quinion <mic...@quinion.demon.co.uk> Thornbury, Bristol, UK
Michael Quinion Associates home page : <http://clever.net/mqa/>
World Wide Words : <http://clever.net/quinion/words/>
Mark Odegard
Posted to alt.usage.english & e-mailed.
I was going to say we lack "timily" (or would you spell it
"timeily"), but maybe we *don't*. Does anyone notice a
difference in pronunciation when it's used this way, in
either themselves or others?
Perhaps /'taIm li/ vs /'taI: mli/ (Am I representing /mli/
alright? It's a nasal hum with a vowelish [l]). This is just
speculation.
I passed over this posting first time 'round. Quinion's post
clarifies my reaction. "Expeditiously" is not the exact
sense here (expeditious is "efficiently and swiftly"). It's
on-time, just-in-time, just a bit ahead of time, right on
schedule. It's not just timeliness, but *planned*
timeliness; the emphasis is not on the efficiency or
swiftness (altho' it's part of it), but on whatever it is
being done being done according to a schedule, and that
schedule being met. Federal Express has built an industry
out of timeliness.
Such a word is genuinely useful.
--
Mark Odegard. Ode...@ptel.net
Michael B. Quinion
In article: <4optt9$h...@cronkite.polaristel.net> Ode...@ptel.net (Mark
> I passed over this posting first time 'round. Quinion's post
> clarifies my reaction. "Expeditiously" is not the exact
> sense here (expeditious is "efficiently and swiftly"). It's
> on-time, just-in-time, just a bit ahead of time, right on
> schedule. It's not just timeliness, but *planned*
> timeliness; the emphasis is not on the efficiency or
> swiftness (altho' it's part of it), but on whatever it is
> being done being done according to a schedule, and that
> schedule being met. Federal Express has built an industry
> out of timeliness.
>
> Such a word is genuinely useful.
I would agree (notwithstanding my tongue-in-cheek comments in my last
message) that a single word wrapping up those meanings would be useful.
Using 'timely' adverbially in this sense would not conflict with current
usage, as the older ones seem to be defunct. The word 'timed' is often
used in a closely-related adjectival sense, as in 'timed delivery', but
I hesitate to suggest 'timedly'!
Your suggestion of 'timily' would be a possibility, but this seems never
to have gained any significant currency in English (OED2 has no
examples), perhaps because the senses have been sufficiently well
covered in the past by the adverbial uses of 'timely', or perhaps
because of difficulties in separating its pronunciation from that of
other words.
As to the sense in which 'timely' is actually being used in the
situation quoted, could the original poster (Liz) give more context?
[Posted and e-mailed]
Ariadne
>
>As to the sense in which 'timely' is actually being used in the
>situation quoted, could the original poster (Liz) give more context?
>
I suppose I must confess to a bit of snobbishness... I suspect that
part of my irritation with the untimely timely comes from it being used
most often by an absolute master of euphemism and double-speak, who
also loves to pepper his writing with grandiose words. <sigh> It was
only when "timely" popped up in someone else's writing that I started
to wonder if I was wrong.
But to answer the question, I believe it is being used to mean
"on-time" AND "expeditious," -- sometimes both at once. For example,
in a questionaire about an employee's performance, the question "Was
the work done timely?" was followed with comments about meeting due
dates as well as being speedy and efficient.
Liz
sara
, "Was the work done timely?"
Aaaaarrrggghhhh!
That sounds like nothing on earth! Ouch! Get rid of it!
Michael B. Quinion
In article: <4p357j$p...@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu> End...@aol.com
> But to answer the question, I believe it is being used to mean
> "on-time" AND "expeditious," -- sometimes both at once. For example,
> in a questionaire about an employee's performance, the question "Was
> the work done timely?" was followed with comments about meeting due
> dates as well as being speedy and efficient.
That is a very interesting observation. It's not a usage I've yet come
across anywhere else, but no doubt -- you having encountered it in more
than one context -- we shall be seeing more of it. Because it wraps up
these two meanings, I doubt whether it will prove to be a helpful
addition to the language, since it is as likely to reduce clarity and
cause muddle as as it is to provide a useful addition to our vocabulary.
But that sensitive spot between my shoulder blades tells me it could
become fashionable!
Mark Odegard
Posted to alt.usage.english & e-mailed.
<mic...@quinion.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>In article: <4p357j$p...@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu> End...@aol.com
>(Ariadne) writes:
>> But to answer the question, I believe it is being used to mean
>> "on-time" AND "expeditious," -- sometimes both at once. For example,
>> in a questionaire about an employee's performance, the question "Was
>> the work done timely?" was followed with comments about meeting due
>> dates as well as being speedy and efficient.
>That is a very interesting observation. It's not a usage I've yet come
>across anywhere else, but no doubt -- you having encountered it in more
>than one context -- we shall be seeing more of it. Because it wraps up
>these two meanings, I doubt whether it will prove to be a helpful
>addition to the language, since it is as likely to reduce clarity and
>cause muddle as as it is to provide a useful addition to our vocabulary.
>But that sensitive spot between my shoulder blades tells me it could
>become fashionable!
I appreciate Quinion's apprehension. "It was done timely"
sounds funny. Pronouncing (or even spelling) it "timily"
however, does *not*.
Only time will tell. There really is a need for a word that
wraps up these meanings all-in-one.
--
Mark Odegard. Ode...@ptel.net
Lars Eighner
In our last episode <4p7k9i$r...@cronkite.polaristel.net>,
Broadcast on alt.usage.english
The lovely and talented Ode...@ptel.net (Mark Odegard) wrote:
>I appreciate Quinion's apprehension. "It was done timely"
>sounds funny. Pronouncing (or even spelling) it "timily"
>however, does *not*.
I have a charmed life, which must not yield
To one of woman born.
Despair thy charm;
And let the angel, whom thou still hast serv'd,
Tell thee, Macduff was from his mother's womb
Untimely ripp'd.
Accursed be that tongue that tells me so,
>Only time will tell. There really is a need for a word that
>wraps up these meanings all-in-one.
--
=Lars Eighner===4103 Ave D (512)459-6693==Pawn to Queen Four==QSFx2==BMOC==
=eig...@io.com=Austin TX 78751-4617 ==Travels with Lizbeth==Bayou Boy==
= http://www.io.com/~eighner/ =====American Prelude==Gay Cosmos==
="Yes, Lizbeth is well."=======Whispered in the Dark==Elements of Arousal==