War of Words: ”For all intents and purposes…”
February 1st, 2006
0 votes
Returning to the War of Words that has haunted our blog over recent months, just wanted to clarify this one:
It’s common to hear someone inject the formal and authoritative phrase, ‘for all intensive purposes…’ as a precursor to a statement.
But it should be ‘for all intents and purposes, blah blah blah…’, right?
February 1st, 2006 at 4:23 pm
Right.
February 3rd, 2006 at 9:26 am
I thought it was intensive purposes!
February 3rd, 2006 at 4:24 pm
I think that’’s right.
And it’’s "flesh" out. Not "flush" out.
Someone was saying "flush out" repeatedly at a recent meetings and it actually hurt my ears.
February 22nd, 2006 at 11:35 am
"flesh out" and "flush out" are both valid and common phrases meaning totally different things.
February 24th, 2006 at 9:48 pm
Heh, you "flush out" your ears, you "flesh out a plan."
And, yes, for all intents and purposes, you are correct. =)
July 27th, 2006 at 3:23 pm
It’s [i]for all intents and purposes[/i] . . . talking about the intent and purpose or practicality - one could say intensive purposes, but it has a different meaning. Intensive is an adjective.
The one I find particularly annoying is flesh-out. It’s not in the dictionary and I believe it is the creation of some psuedo-intellectual designed to make the originator feel important for creating a new term. It is my understanding that it means to build substance in an outward motion. I’d like to know the origin of this new phrase. I would guess that it developed in a CSI lab or art studio and was revised for the business management field. It is definitely spreading. I vote [i]no[/i] on the term. I listened to a webcaster use it over-and-over. Grrrr!
It will probably be replaced by something else . . . kind of like how [i]lay-offs[/i] became [i]downsizing[/i] and downsizing became [i]rightsizing.[/i]
Oh well.
October 9th, 2006 at 6:06 am
You need to throw your dictionary into the bin.
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/define.asp?key=29606&dict=CALD
March 24th, 2007 at 6:10 pm
Another peeve.
Chomping at the bit. Generally used to describe nervous anticipation or eagerness to proceed.
I horse does not chomp at the bit. It CHAMPS at the bit. It is the function of mouthing and trying to spit the bit out. Champing.
Another peeve.
Heart wrenching. No, no, it is "Heart Rending"
Wrenching belongs to the gut as in "Gut Wrenching"
Another peeve,
Forte. As in "That is his forte…" meaning his strong point. It is pronounced FORT in French, and not fortay.
Forte in Italian is a musical direction meaning "with force", and is pronounced FORTAY.
Sahll I go on?
April 5th, 2007 at 10:14 am
Actually, in French the word would be written "le fort" which would rhyme with the English word "for." There is really no satisfactory pronounciation of the word "forte" in English, since it is an amalgamation of French and Italian words.