Talk:insofar
Latest comment: 3 years ago by Kiwima in topic RFV discussion: February–March 2021
I am bothered by the "adverb" designation/analysis; Fowler has it as "compound preposition", which I prefer at least as an optional diagnosis. JonRichfield (talk) 13:02, 28 February 2021 (UTC)
Dated advice
[edit]- 1931, H.W. and F.G. Fowler, The King's English, Oxford University Press:
- So far as and so far that are distinguished by good writers in being applied, the first to clauses that contain a doubtful or varying fact, the other to clauses containing an ascertained or positive fact. So far as (and in so far as), that is, means to whatever extent, and so far that means to this extent, namely that.
The question of the Capitulations and of the Mixed Tribunals is not in any way essentially British, save insofar as the position of Great Britain in Egypt makes her primarily responsible. — Times.
Correct; but except that would be much better than save insofar as.
- If you have better advice for a quotation then by all means use it, or even completely value-free text, but the quotation you removed is no worse than say, Shakespearian quotes that are a great deal more dated. The Fowler quote is far better than the current quotation, which is rather grotty as it stands. Its quote's content is not part of the definition, but an excellent example of usage. JonRichfield (talk) 17:16, 28 February 2021 (UTC)
- Non-expert analysis: The sentence part of the above quote could be fine, but I would imagine that it should be included on the insofar as page instead of this page (excuse me if I am not understanding some part of this). An 'old' prescriptive rule that has enough authority could be written up as a usage note that explains the informal and more formal usages. Second, I would say that the tone here [1] is a little hostile- don't worry about it if any edit gets reverted. Rather than a vociferous defense, a cordial conversation is all that is needed. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 17:48, 28 February 2021 (UTC)
- As soon as someone gets the bibliographic detail for the Times citation, it can provide some more support for insofar as, but not for the independent existence of insofar. DCDuring (talk) 22:53, 28 February 2021 (UTC)
- Non-expert analysis: The sentence part of the above quote could be fine, but I would imagine that it should be included on the insofar as page instead of this page (excuse me if I am not understanding some part of this). An 'old' prescriptive rule that has enough authority could be written up as a usage note that explains the informal and more formal usages. Second, I would say that the tone here [1] is a little hostile- don't worry about it if any edit gets reverted. Rather than a vociferous defense, a cordial conversation is all that is needed. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 17:48, 28 February 2021 (UTC)
- If you have better advice for a quotation then by all means use it, or even completely value-free text, but the quotation you removed is no worse than say, Shakespearian quotes that are a great deal more dated. The Fowler quote is far better than the current quotation, which is rather grotty as it stands. Its quote's content is not part of the definition, but an excellent example of usage. JonRichfield (talk) 17:16, 28 February 2021 (UTC)
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We have an entry for insofar as. We do not have any evidence for the existence of insofar, spelled solid, outside of that idiom. If it exists it would be nice to know when it was in use. The OED may provide clues. DCDuring (talk) 22:56, 28 February 2021 (UTC)
- Plenty of results on google/google books for "insofar there is", which seems to be an ellipsis of "insofar as there is". If you search for "insofar *" on the ngram viewer, it will show you a few of the most frequent tokens that follow it in the corpus. Colin M (talk) 23:58, 28 February 2021 (UTC)
- A large number of the usages are spurious due to insertion of adverbials and other phrases, eg, "insofar, at least, as", "insofar, that is, as", "insofar only as", "If I am only insofar a moral person as I am a Kantian or Aristotelian", "insofar (and only insofar) as", etc. Of the balance, many seem to be by non-native speakers, or scannos, speaking errors, typesetting errors, etc. DCDuring (talk) 14:45, 1 March 2021 (UTC)
- From all of this I conclude that the most likely outcome of this RfV is that the only definition of insofar is "insofar as". The question remains whether the as-less use is
{{alternative form of}}or error. BTW, that would make the PoS "Conjunction". DCDuring (talk) 15:06, 1 March 2021 (UTC)- OED's 3 earliest quotations for insofar are all without "as", the latest being:
Colin M (talk) 20:57, 1 March 2021 (UTC)(1849, G.Grote) Insofar the latter had good reason to complain.
- It would still be nice if we had our own evidence. From the one cite we have the OED's cite, the definition would seem to be "insofar as" in current English. We have to make sure we've broken circularity at [[insofar as]]. DCDuring (talk) 18:16, 2 March 2021 (UTC)
- From all of this I conclude that the most likely outcome of this RfV is that the only definition of insofar is "insofar as". The question remains whether the as-less use is
- A large number of the usages are spurious due to insertion of adverbials and other phrases, eg, "insofar, at least, as", "insofar, that is, as", "insofar only as", "If I am only insofar a moral person as I am a Kantian or Aristotelian", "insofar (and only insofar) as", etc. Of the balance, many seem to be by non-native speakers, or scannos, speaking errors, typesetting errors, etc. DCDuring (talk) 14:45, 1 March 2021 (UTC)
cited Kiwima (talk) 23:24, 10 March 2021 (UTC)
RFV-passed Kiwima (talk) 22:20, 18 March 2021 (UTC)