ongoing by Tim Bray · Simply Don’t
Generally it’s flawed to start a phrase with the phrase “simply”. I provide as proof two such conditions. I believe
there’s a typical thread to be drawn.
Caught ·
Individuals with mental-health points can get caught. For instance, when some mixture of melancholy and nervousness means they
can’t get away from bed all day, and might’t say why. Or once they really want to dress or packed or organized
for some imminent un-reschedulable occasion, and might’t get began.
It might be straightforward to — sorry, it is straightforward, I do know this as a result of I
have — say one thing like “Simply arise and look out the window, it’s sunny.” Or “Simply
seize some random underwear and drop them within the suitcase, then you definately’ll be began”. Or “Simply get the binder out of your
knapsack and have a look at the primary web page.”
This. Will. Not. Assist.
Damaged ·
Suppose a colleague at work who takes care of an essential high-volume Internet Service is coping with a horrible drawback: Spiking
latencies, or an precise outage. They’re not making good progress, and somebody’s requested you should you may also help. You have a look at some
graphs and error messages. It’s straightforward (as soon as once more, I communicate from expertise) to say one thing like “Might you simply cache the new
partition keys?” or “So, simply scan the logs for the high-latency indicators and frequency-sort them.”
This. Will. Not. Assist.
Philology ·
Pardon this sidebar; I’ve acquired a historical past with dictionaries. And, now we have plenty of ’em inside fairly straightforward attain of the place I’m sitting to
write this. I used to be interested in this utilization of “simply” in a way which kind of means “merely”, diminishing the issue of
no matter motion is being proposed.
So I grabbed the
Shorter OED (4th ed.), which is a
lot simpler on the wrists and eyes than the total
OED and which, cognoscenti will inform you, is perhaps a
little stronger on etymology than its bigger sibling. Disappointingly, I turned up nothing. So I went and took out the
Compact Oxford English Dictionary. Be aware: This isn’t the teeny little Compact Oxford Dictionary, it’s a 1989
printing of the then-new full Second Version of the OED, photographically lowered with 9 pages on every of its (very
giant) leaves. Which suggests it strains the wrist and also you want a magnifying glass to learn the textual content.
Questioning why I care? I helped produce these artifacts. Should write about that sometime… anyhow.
Within the large OED I struck gold. Which shocked me since I’ve at all times thought that the Shorter is sufficient to
suffice anybody who’s not making an attempt to determine what Chaucer meant or when Indian vocabulary start to infuse into English. In
reality, that is the primary time in a long time that I’ve truly wanted to go to the massive OED.
Beneath I reproduce the related web page. Warning: For those who enlarge this you’ll get the full-resolution image, and it’s not
small. The web page begins midway by the adverbial senses of “simply”.
There, we be taught (see sense 5) of the utilization which implies “Not more than; merely; barely”. The primary supporting citation is from
Robert Hooke in 1665, however my favourite is from Macaulay in 1849: “Males who
… appeared to assume they’d given an illustrious proof of loyalty by simply stopping in need of regicide.”
However let’s not ignore sense 5.c: “Used to extenuate the motion expressed by a verb, and so to symbolize it as a small
factor.” The primary recognized utilization from by Walter Scott in 1815. The newest citation is from 1898 and resonates with me:
“Mom! Just do get in with me for a couple of minutes until the prepare begins.” I ponder why Mom wouldn’t get in, and I’m fairly
positive that “simply” didn’t assist.
Take-away ·
Don’t, to cite the OED, “symbolize as a small factor” the issue of one thing you’re asking another person to
do, whenever you’re not inside their head and don’t perceive what they see and really feel. The phrase “simply” is a sign that you simply’re not
taking their drawback critically.
So, don’t do this.
I’d prefer to say “Simply don’t” however clearly shouldn’t.