Sunday, October 31, 2010

English as she is spoke.

A recent news bulletin referred to a package which the authorities said was "potentially suspicious".  I would suggest that you can't have anything which is potentially suspicious - it's either suspicious or it's not.  The word potentially means having the potential to become something which at the moment it is not, so "potentially suspicious", if it means anything at all, means that it's not suspicious at this point in time, but may become so in the future - which could apply to just about anything, and so is meaningless.  If you have reason to believe that the package may be dodgy, then it's suspicious - simple as that.

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