Path: ccsf.homeunix.org!ccsf.homeunix.org!news1.wakwak.com!nf1.xephion.ne.jp!onion.ish.org!onodera-news!Q.T.Honey!newsfeed.rim.or.jp!newsfeed2.kddnet.ad.jp!in.100proofnews.com!in.100proofnews.com!cyclone.bc.net!newsfeed.telusplanet.net!newsfeed.telus.net!clgrps13.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Travers Naran User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; rv:1.5) Gecko/20031007 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en, ja MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: fj.life.in-japan Subject: Re: "by and by" = soon ??? References: <3fa07681$1_6@cosmos.uncensored-news.com> In-Reply-To: <3fa07681$1_6@cosmos.uncensored-news.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 28 Message-ID: Date: Thu, 30 Oct 2003 04:41:19 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 206.116.24.146 X-Trace: clgrps13 1067488879 206.116.24.146 (Wed, 29 Oct 2003 21:41:19 MST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2003 21:41:19 MST Xref: ccsf.homeunix.org fj.life.in-japan:7078 SR wrote: > I wonder about the expression "by and by". > My son's English book (Japanese high school) defines "by and by" as "pretty > soon". I found this one > in 2 dictionaries (Babylon Online) for example. > However, it is also defined as "gradually", "eventually", or "it won't be > long". > > The difference between "pretty soon" or "soon" and "gradually" is like day > and night > to my ears! > The actor (Superman) got paralyzed when he fell from his horse. Since this > tragedy happened several years ago, he has been improving by and by. > Nobody would think that this means "pretty soon" or just "soon". > What have the experts to say on this one? http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=by%20and%20by -- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Travers Naran | Visit the SFTV Science Blunders F/T Programmer,P/T Meddler In Time&Space | Hall of Infamy! New Westminster, British Columbia, | Canada, Earth, Milky Way, etc. | "Stand Back! I'm a programmer!" | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------