Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Going forward


In another place, I called for a moratorium on the use of the redundant phrase "jumping the shark," which derives from an episode of Happy Days, a programme I never enjoyed. At the same time and place, I urged citizens to use the phrase "going forward," on the grounds that it is working so well for sports administrators and the thrusting men who are making that nice Mr Key's government the success which it is, self-evidently.

In an effort to ensure that citizens will recognise the utility of the phrase 'going forward,' I have inserted it at several key points in the following work of prose, which is the Gettysberg Address delivered by one Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States of America. I am sure you will appreciate the improvement this phrase gives to this otherwise prosaic piece of prose.
Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers, going forward, brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are, going forward, engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure. We, going forward, are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live, going forward. Going forward, it is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground, going forward. The brave men, living and dead, going forward, who struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world, going forward, will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, going forward, rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us, going forward, to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us - that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion – that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that, going forward, this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth, going forward.

13 comments:

Jake said...

I think, instead, that that last sentence should begin with 'look, at the end of the day'. That way, everyone will know that you have the facts and common sense on your side.

Jake said...

But otherwise, we should action that plan going forward.

Word verification is exurb, which Mount Albert is soon to be.

Paul said...

You are quite right, in both instances.

Philip said...

I can't help feeling that certain adverbial opportunifications are being under-utilised here. Going forward may advance progressively for a while, but given the progressive advancement of chronological inexorability there will soon be a need for bold, forward-going constructions such as going steadily forward, going rapidly forward, going forward at an appropriate rate of speed, going very considerably forward, going forward by prodigious leaps and bounds without annoying the shark, and going backward less rapidly than at the corresponding phase of the previous cycle.Word Verification: yallyrug, the carpet George W Bush used to roll out for Oriental dignitaries.

Anonymous said...

after four years in the public service? that speech makes more sense now, that when the beardy man dun bespoke it.

Giovanni Tiso said...

I always thought the speech could have used the adverb "basically" here and there, to make it more down to earth, a little less lofty.

I'm also compelled to point out the address was delivered in Gettysburg, not Gettysberg. Gettysberg is just outside of Stockholm, where Lincoln delivered his famous Ich bin ein Swede speech.

Word verification: elifl. It was going to be a longer, more interesting word, but the captcha guy was shot midway through it.

Philip said...

the use of the redundant phrase "jumping the shark," which derives from an episode of Happy Days, a programme I never enjoyedMe neither. Samuel bloody Beckett and his piscatorial minimalism.

Word Verification: keteli, small ceremonial Maori kettles.

Giovanni Tiso said...

I saw a production of Happy Days that started with the title track of Happy Days, and it's no word of a lie.

Workaround for the italics eating your carriage return on blogger: put a full stop after the closed tag. This has been a public service announcement brough to you by today's word verification product, perade. Perade, the pear flavoured sports drink preferred by one out of four hundred olympic athletes.

Jake said...

John Key said "at the end of the day" on the radio this morning, as did my taxi driver. Both are men of parts. Key also got in the variant "in the cold light of day", followed hard on by a "most Aucklanders would agree". Mikey Havoc didn't stand a chance.

Anonymous said...

current preference to "at the end of the day" is "hence why".

"hence why" - when you need to put going forward in front of ur why.

word verification - realcat. when dead cat bounce isn't messy enough.

stephen said...

In the first instance.

Philip said...

Workaround for the italics eating your carriage return on blogger: put a full stop after the closed tag.

Thanks for that; I was running out of swear-words.

Word Verification: presses. Deplorably dull.

Pablo said...

I tend to use the phrase "at the end of the day" when asked: "what time is dinner"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8F0vdEWxfQ