Discussion Groups / English Usage / January 2010

On Jan 16, 11:31 pm, "James Silverton" <not.jim.silver...@verizon.net>
wrote:

I don't suppose that when I am gone that I will have much say in
whether I am described as being "formerly" as opposed to "latterly".

I know of a literary society in which there was once a strict insistence
that membership terminated with death.  The intention was to prevent the
society from seeming or becoming a museum of the "hall of fame" sort.  As it
is, the society has accumulated a number of living relics, including your
correspondent, and including dead ones would certainly not help matters.
Once great care was taken to ensure that any mention of the society in
obituaries be decidedly, if not emphatically, past tense --- to a degree
that historians of the society sometimes have difficulty determining who the
members were at particular times in the past.  Naturally, this fine point in
the rules of the society is not so strictly observed these days.

On Jan 17, 12:31 am, "James Silverton" <not.jim.silver...@verizon.net>
wrote:

Can't they just say "the late Associate Professor Emeritus"
"the late"
"formerly"

"Formerly", from where I'm looking, looks ever so slightly longer even
though both terms have the same number of characters when including
the space in "The late"

It's an interesting point that you make because if a career bank-
robber died on the "job", the media would most likely not refer to him/
her as "formerly an armed, vicious, thieving bank-robbing thug"

It does. I mean, I can see that when you die, you aren't associated with
your university any more, but I always thought that if you attained
'emeritus' status, you didn't lose it. So a retired associate professor
would be 'formerly Associate Professor of X at Y university', but an
Associate Professor Emeritus would keep that title, no 'formerly' about it.

Some parrots get even less respect, as you may recall:

Mr. Praline: Look, matey, I know a dead parrot when I see one, and I'm
looking at one right now.

    Owner: No no he's not dead, he's, he's restin'! Remarkable bird,
the Norwegian Blue, idn'it, ay? Beautiful plumage!

    Mr. Praline: The plumage don't enter into it. It's stone dead.

    Owner: Nononono, no, no! 'E's resting!

    Mr. Praline: All right then, if he's restin', I'll wake him up!
(shouting at the cage) 'Ello, Mister Polly Parrot! I've got a lovely
fresh cuttle fish for you if you
    show...

    (owner hits the cage)

    Owner: There, he moved!

    Mr. Praline: No, he didn't, that was you hitting the cage!

    Owner: I never!!

    Mr. Praline: Yes, you did!

    Owner: I never, never did anything...

    Mr. Praline: (yelling and hitting the cage repeatedly) 'ELLO
POLLY!!!!! Testing! Testing! Testing! Testing! This is your nine
o'clock alarm call!

    (Takes parrot out of the cage and thumps its head on the counter.
Throws it up in the air and watches it plummet to the floor.)

    Mr. Praline: Now that's what I call a dead parrot.

James Silverton set the following eddies spiralling through the space-time
continuum:

"Former" or "formerly" would imply to me, that the person was no longer in
the stated office (e.g. he had resigned or retired, or his term had expired
and he wasn't re-elected), and so the word can be applied to a living
person e.g. former U.S. President Bill CLinton.

When the title or office is preceded by "late", that definitely implies that
the person died while holding that title.

So here we are to assume that the Associate Professor Emeritus in question
was no longer in office, that he was already "formerly" before he died.

Chemists, who use beakers for coffee, are not noted for their
sensitivity.

On Jan 16, 6:31�pm, "James Silverton" <not.jim.silver...@verizon.net>
wrote:

By the same token, should we call Julius Caesar a "former ruler of the
Roman Empire" even though there is no more Roman Empire to mistake a
dead Caesar for a living one?