Stephen Fry shares one of my little bugbears

We’ll answer that vital point momentarily, as they say here in the US. I do enjoy hearing American waiters using that word; as you enter a restaurant they might say, “I’ll be with you momentarily”. They are usually righter than they know: a fleeting vision that flickers before your eyes and then is gone. I suppose ‘in a moment’ takes too long to say in their busy lives and ‘presently’ is English English to the point of being more or less flagrantly homosexual, so ‘momentarily’ it is.

Stephen Fry

Comments

[Roger Wilmut]

'Nominal' for 'normal' is another one, though it may be for the same reason as 'Affirmative' instead of 'Yes' - clarity over poor radio circuits. But why 'erbs for herbs, and bayta for beta?

[dee harvey]

I love when they use it on planes

"the plane will take off momentarily"

well I was rather hoping we'd stay in the air for the entire 6 hours it takes to get to New York

[Ken Douglas]

Along the same lines as Dee - it always makes me smile to hear "we will de-plane momentarily"

De-plane itself makes me chuckle in any case - but I then always picture everyone jumping off the plane and then jumping straight back on again!!

[Nigel]

Whereas I'm irritated when the train guard announces we will be 'arriving into' (the Station).

[Euan Semple]

"next station stop" get me going too

[Jon Husband]

English is indeed a very flexible language, innit ?