{"id":553,"date":"2012-05-22T07:57:01","date_gmt":"2012-05-21T19:57:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/?p=553"},"modified":"2012-05-22T07:58:00","modified_gmt":"2012-05-21T19:58:00","slug":"an-eagerly-anticipated-loss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/?p=553","title":{"rendered":"An eagerly-anticipated loss"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Back in the dim distant days of the fifth form, we had an English teacher who insisted that nice<\/em> \u2013 in the sense of \u2018pleasant or agreeable\u2019 \u2013 could only apply to food.\u00a0 A \u2018nice day\u2019 or \u2018a nice broad-brimmed hat\u2019 was sure to lower the A-minus your essay might otherwise have warranted to a B-plus.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not sure where this exclusive association with food originated.\u00a0 At various points in history, nice has meant \u2018foolish\u2019, \u2018stupid\u2019, and \u2018loose-mannered\u2019 (among other things).\u00a0 And the pleasant-agreeable usage has been around for at least 100 years.\u00a0 But, if you didn\u2019t want to be docked much-needed marks, you quickly learned to serve nice only with food \u2013 at least until you were safely through to the lower sixth.<\/p>\n

There were a number of other words about which Sir had strong feelings.\u00a0 Utilise<\/em> was one.\u00a0 Utilise (we were told) meant to put to use something which might otherwise be discarded.\u00a0 A builder could utilise old bricks; but, if the bricks were new, he simply used them. \u00a0\u2018Utilise is not just a posh synonym for use.\u2019<\/p>\n

Sir was also most particular about the use of anticipate<\/em> \u2013 \u2018to be aware of something in advance and take steps to deal with it\u2019.\u00a0 Anticipate was not<\/em> a synonym for expect or await. \u00a0But, unfortunately, that is what it seems to have become.<\/p>\n

Just a few days ago, the business desk of a well-respected news organisation said that \u2018Facebook priced its initial public offering at $US38 per share ahead of one of the most eagerly-anticipated share flotations in recent stock market history.\u2019\u00a0 And the sports desk of the same organisation talked about \u2018the much-anticipated match-up\u2019 between two leading rugby halfbacks.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s probably too late to turn back the tide.\u00a0 Anticipate has already become a synonym for expect or await.\u00a0 But, in allowing that to happen, we have deprived ourselves of a perfectly good single word meaning \u2018to be aware of something in advance and take steps to deal with it\u2019.\u00a0 It seems that too few of us had anticipated this.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Back in the dim distant days of the fifth form, we had an English teacher who insisted that nice \u2013 in the sense of \u2018pleasant or agreeable\u2019 \u2013 could only apply to food.\u00a0 A \u2018nice day\u2019 or \u2018a nice broad-brimmed … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,6,4,7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=553"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":557,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553\/revisions\/557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=553"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=553"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}