What does "last past" mean?
ri...@sssnet.com
states: "... saith that he was of the age of twenty two years in the
month of April last past ..."
Since this was written in June 1840, does this mean that he was 22
years old in April of 1840 and was born in 1818?
R J Valentine
That's the way I'd take it. There's also something like "22 years old and
more" on the date of a document, which I'd take similarly.
I'd class it as a contrapedantic (q.g.) with locutions like "I could care
less <what they do somewhere else>; <this is how we do it here>".
Approximates AmE "twenty two and a half".
--
R. J. Valentine <mailto:r...@theWorld.com>
CyberCypher
@g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:
It's an unnecessary and undesirable redundancy. "April last" means "last
April" and "April past" means a former April and not one coming this year
or next. Put them together, and you've got "the last past April". Typical
legal gobbledygook from two centuries last past.
--
Franke: EFL teacher & medical editor
For email, replace numbers with English alphabet.
Don Aitken
Whatever he meant by it, you should take account of the probability
that, like most people at that time, he had only the vaguest idea of
his age, and, when asked for it, would just guess.
--
Don Aitken
Mail to the From: address is not read.
To email me, substitute "clara.co.uk" for "freeuk.com"
Steve Hayes
Yes.
If you cut all the waffle of the lawyers who are paid by the word, it means
that he said he was 22 last April.
--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/7734/stevesig.htm
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk
CDB
<ri...@sssnet.com> wrote in message
news:1116991237....@g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
It sounds as if the writer was interpreting "past" as more of a
participle than an adjective: the April that had passed most recently
at the time of writing. As everybody has said, it's no help to
comprehension these days. CDB
Charles Riggs
<cyber...@19--16-25-13-01-03.com> wrote:
>ri...@sssnet.com wrote in news:1116991237.426730.55820
>@g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:
>
>> In my greatgreat-grandfather's petition to become a US citizen it
>> states: "... saith that he was of the age of twenty two years in the
>> month of April last past ..."
>>
>> Since this was written in June 1840, does this mean that he was 22
>> years old in April of 1840 and was born in 1818?
>
>It's an unnecessary and undesirable redundancy. "April last" means "last
>April" and "April past" means a former April and not one coming this year
>or next. Put them together, and you've got "the last past April". Typical
>legal gobbledygook from two centuries last past.
I disagree, Franke. 'of April last' sounds odd; it also might be
interpreted as being the last day in April, by some people. 'April
past' is awful; 'April last past' is both pretty and gets the meaning
across. Then again, I often enjoy redundancy, I do.
--
Charles Riggs
Peter Duncanson
A logical interpretation of "in the month of April last past" is that it
refers to a fully completed, i.e. "past" April, rather than a present,
incomplete, April. If the petition is being made during April, say April
1840, then "in the month of April last past" logically refers to April 1839.
--
Peter Duncanson
UK (posting from a.u.e)
Bob Cunningham
I would take it to mean that.
It seems to me the collocation "last past" is a non-idiom.
That is, the meaning of the phrase can be correctly inferred
from the meanings of the individual words.
The _New Shorter Oxford_ has a run-on entry for "last past",
calling it obsolete and defining it to mean the same as one
sense of "last" (3b):
Of a period, season, etc.: occurring next before the
time of writing or speaking.
But it seems wrong to call it obsolete. Just as we can say
about a train that the station last passed was Sunnyville,
we should be able to say of a month that it was the last
past, whether or not someone has previously used the phrase.
("Past" as a past participle is tagged obsolete, but it
still seems understandable when used that way.)