[TUHS] Unix style

[cowan@mercury.ccil.org (John Cowan)]

Dave Horsfall scripsit:

> My favourite is "Ladies and gentlemen, we will be landing momentarily."

I assume from the spelling "favourite" and your question that you're
not North American.

> Err, aren't they going to let us "deplane" first?

I'm afraid not.  Americans and Canadians have been using "momentarily"
to mean "in a moment" as well as "for a moment" since 1869.  That should
be time enough to catch up with us, or catch us up, as the case may be.

-- 
John Cowan          http://www.ccil.org/~cowan        cowan at ccil.org
People go through the bother of Christmas because Christmas helps them
to understand why they go through the bother of living out their lives
the rest of the year. For one brief instant, we see human society as it
should and could be, a world in which business has become the exchanging
of presents and in which nothing is important except the happiness and
well-being of the ultimate consumer.  --Northrop Frye (1948)