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Chris -- 2025-05-10
I have never beleived that “momentarily” should be used to mean “soon” or “directly,” but the usage is becoming more and more common. Now I see Webster’s has picked this usage up, but It still irritates me.
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Yes. My favorite example I have heard repeatedly; an airplane pilot announcing to all, just prior to takeoff, in a very reassuring voice, that “We will be in the air momentarily.†I think all concerned would (rightly) be very much so if they suspected it would really be that way.
I don’t see it as a good eggcorn, though. Do you? Can you explain what semantic restructuring you think is going on?
Welcome to the forum, by the way!
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
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“Momentarily†in the sense of “imminently†is on an upswing in American English, as we can see by looking at the phrase “arrive momentarily†in the millions of books in the Harvard/Google project: http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/graph?cont … moothing=3
Of the 200 authorities on the Usage Panel of the American Heritage Dictionary, however, only 40% give it a thumbs-up: http://www.yourdictionary.com/momentarily
I think you’ll find the sentiment on this forum leans more to the descriptivist side of the prescriptivist/descriptivist spectrum. I seem to be the most prescriptive logomaniac in these woods, but I wouldn’t go to the wall for the much-abused senses of “hopefully,†“mercifully,†and “momentarily.†They have waaaay too much momentum.
Last edited by kem (2011-01-24 18:19:38)
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
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