Reader Thomas Asch pointed me to a recent court decision that said something was “imminently reasonable,” when it clearly meant “eminently reasonable.” (The first reference to “imminently reasonable” in the case was in quotation marks, but the second was not.) This led me to do a bit of searching, and it turns out there are more than 200 opinions in Westlaw’s ALLCASES database that use “imminently reasonable,” though all or nearly all must mean “eminently reasonable.” It’s even present in one Supreme Court opinion from the mid-1980s.
Is this now a standard usage, or still a fairly rare variant? The answer seems to be the latter: Westlaw and Lexis searches over the past decade reveal that “eminently reasonable” remains more than 10 times more common than “imminently reasonable,” and the dictionaries I’ve checked (including the OED) don’t list “imminent” as a standard meaning of “eminent.” So stay clear on the difference between “imminent” and “eminent.” And stay away from “immanent” altogether.
Davidwhitewolf says:
“Hear that?… That…is the sound of inevitability.” Still, it’s good to see someone still raging against the dying of the light….
I’ve given up expecting accurate grammar on any resume, even those from folks with graduate degrees. This sad state of affairs does make it easy to separate the wheat from the chaff, though….
December 18, 2009, 1:58 pmCrunchy Frog says:
It’s not reasonable now, but real soon it will be. Just you wait.
December 18, 2009, 1:58 pmrhhardin says:
Leave room for an immanent eschaton someday.
December 18, 2009, 2:05 pmJohn Burgess says:
I’m rather proud of my immanence, thank you very much!
But the imminent/eminent thing is just typos or poorly remembered vocabulary.
December 18, 2009, 2:09 pmGuy says:
Well, if I kill random man on the street, then moments afterward see that he had dynamite strapped to his chest and a note explaining why he was about suicide bomb a shopping mall, my act was imminently reasonable, wasn’t it?
I blame the modern reliance on red squigglies. For example, I accidentally typed “afterword” instead of “afterward” above before I caught the mistake by random luck, damn homophones.
December 18, 2009, 2:13 pmHelen Knowles says:
This posting brought to mind vivid memories of the first time I arrived at an airport in the U.S. many years ago. “The bags will be here momentarily.” I was startled by this announcement because I wanted to take permanent possession of my bags; I didn’t want them to be here for a short time, as I, an English person, had always understood “momentarily” to mean – the OED defines “momentarily” as “for a moment.”
A brief perusal of the results of a Lexis-Nexis search of Scotus opinions using “momentarily” (there aren’t as many as you might think) suggests this English usage of the word is far more common in the opinions than the American definition of the word – “at any moment” (again OED definition).
Hmm, perhaps this is deserving of our attention, and comments, although only momentarily…
December 18, 2009, 2:17 pmrequired says:
I believe that it is imminently reasonable that it will be proper to use “imminently reasonable” where now only “eminently reasonable” should be used.
December 18, 2009, 2:19 pmAssistant Village Idiot says:
For all intensive purposes, imminent reasonableness will be here momentarily, so you’d better grab it while you can.
December 18, 2009, 2:24 pmAndrew says:
I think we are now on the “precipice” of changing back to a proper use of “eminently reasonable” instead of “imminently reasonable,” irregardless of recent mastication of these terms.
December 18, 2009, 2:24 pmMark N. says:
Somewhat disconcertingly, the gap on Google Books is much narrower: only 3:1 in favor of “eminently reasonable”.
Is the legal profession more to blame than others? A perusal of the first few pages of results for each makes it look like law-related books form a larger proportion of the “imminently” than the “eminently” results, though I haven’t done a proper survey.
December 18, 2009, 2:34 pmLaura Victoria says:
I think reasonableness in most of our courts is far from being imminent. Loser morons.
December 18, 2009, 2:35 pmTwirip says:
Can’t we go back to “very reasonable”? Or “completely reasonable” where appropriate?
The sort of people who say things like “imminently reasonable” are more interested in trying to sound intelligent than in communicating effectively.
December 18, 2009, 2:38 pmasg says:
This discussion clearly needs to get untracked.
December 18, 2009, 2:41 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
Helen Knowles,
That’s very odd. I thought it was the “at any moment” definition that was the Briticism. In the US, the only context in which I have ever heard “momentarily” used to mean “at any moment” is the one you mentioned.
December 18, 2009, 2:48 pmegd says:
Are you sure that the authors weren’t suggesting that the result was immanently reasonable, rather than eminently reasonable?
Also, I believe that imminently reasonable might be appropriate in some circumstances, such as decisions regarding prior restraints. A decision to bar the Nation of Islam from marching through a Jewish suburb during Hanukkah might be imminently reasonable, even if not eminently reasonable (although I’ll admit, it’s a stretch). That of course leaves aside whether such an act would be immanently reasonable.
December 18, 2009, 2:56 pmDavidwhitewolf says:
Dude, he said don’t go there.
December 18, 2009, 2:58 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
I’ve seen “imminent domain” so many times in the last couple of years that I was beginning to feel it was taking over. It’s a relief to see that Google gives a mere 26,200 hits, and a large number of those seem to be connected with a band of that (excellent!) name.
(“Immanent domain” — 11,600 hits — doesn’t appear to be taken yet as a band name, though http://www.immanentdomain.com and http://www.immanentdomain.org are, alas, both occupied.)
It was a little alarming, though, to see this as the second-from-the-top search result. The actual article has “eminent” throughout, but apparently someone thought “imminent” common enough that a link was in order.
[Oh, cool, you don't have to use HTML to post links here? You can just type the URL in a comment and it's made live? I had no idea. Is that due to the site redesign?]
December 18, 2009, 3:04 pmGuy says:
I think that one’s exacerbated by the fact that it’s easy to rationalize: “Oh, well, it’s about to become the exclusive domain of the government.”
December 18, 2009, 3:14 pmegd says:
Yes, but I think “immanently reasonable” is more appropriate than “eminently reasonable.”
Reasonableness generally doesn’t jut out (ex minere), I figure in most cases the court is not saying that the reasonableness in question is “standing out conspicuously” or “having outstanding character.”
Similarly, reasonableness doesn’t overhang (in minere), even temporarily.
But reasonableness may remain in the mind (immanere), and really only has meaning within the philosophical construct which includes the very idea of reasonableness. Therefore, the proper term should be “immanently reasonable.”
Being a grammar textualist means not adhering to long-established precedent when it’s clearly wrong. This is one of those times. And, much like standing, grammatical issues can (and should) be raised sua sponte.
December 18, 2009, 3:15 pmtroll_dc2 says:
Twirip makes the most sense here. People who use puffed-up language often get it wrong.
December 18, 2009, 3:16 pmGuy says:
I thought that was exactly what they were saying. Either that or they wanted to stick a fancy-sounding adverb in front of their adjective for emphasis so that no one would have the guts to disagree with them. Obviously, it’s clearly an eminently reasonable approach that any intelligent person would agree with, unless that person hated justice, such a proposition is self-evident.
December 18, 2009, 3:24 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
Guy,
I think that one’s exacerbated by the fact that it’s easy to rationalize: “Oh, well, it’s about to become the exclusive domain of the government.”
Except when it’s about to become the exclusive domain of Pfizer, which will then do nothing with it ;-)
But the “eminently/imminently reasonable” thing makes clear that the people making the — well, I guess for the time being we have EV’s permission to call it the error — aren’t getting to the rationalizing stage at all. They’re just repeating as best they can a string of syllables that they heard, using it in the way they have heard it used. Perfectly reasonable behavior, and it does work the large majority of the time. But not every time; and often the way we screw up is tied to how we know the word we wanted.
Back in one of EV’s many other discussions of how language changes, months or more past, someone (EV himself?) linked an article that listed half a dozen or so originally erroneous variants that were catching up on (and, IIRC, in some cases had already overtaken) their “right” originals. The one that floored me was “chaise lounge” for “chaise longue.” Not just because the original and the “error” were neck-and-neck (with “lounge” now showing up in furniture catalogs and the like), but because I had always thought it was “chaise lounge” myself.
I’d never used the term, and never heard anyone else use it either, which was maybe the problem. Had I looked at “chaise longue” on a page with an intent to say it, I would have paid some attention to the order of the letters. (Also panicked. French, if you will pardon my you-know-what, has scared the shit out of me ever since I was in nursery school and had to have protracted coaching to say “Un.”)
December 18, 2009, 3:52 pmLeo Marvin says:
Only 10 times (more or less)? That’s very disappointing.
Three times? Frightening.
December 18, 2009, 3:59 pmDennis N says:
Ya gotta be fast with your quips on this board. All the good ones got taken early.
Those of us who are only half fast don’t have a chance. ;-)
December 18, 2009, 4:12 pmrjs says:
EV: “It’s even present in one Supreme Court opinion from the mid-1980s.”
Yeah but the mistake is not in the majority’s opinion, so clearly it’s a minority view.
My favorites are those cases that use both phrases. I found a handful, although in some it’s Westlaw doing it in their headnotes.
Oh, and try entering “imminently reasonable” and “eminently reasonable” in Google. You get:
Did you mean: “eminently reasonable” “eminently reasonable”
Computer responses are so eminently reasonable.
December 18, 2009, 4:28 pmDuffy Pratt says:
A straight google search gives a larger difference: about 8000 hits for “imminently reasonable” and 3.2 million hits for “eminently reasonable.” That’s a ratio of about 400:1 It’s hard for me to get too worked up over this. It’s the kind of error that comes from bad proofreading and reliance on spell check.
Furthermore, the sense of the phrase is just “BIGGER reasonable,” so it’s not that surprising that the author of the phrase didn’t think about what the specific modifier actually meant. There aren’t many instances that call for the use of either word, and in general, it’s just a sign of bad writing, whether or not the author uses the correct word.
December 18, 2009, 4:34 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
Duffy Pratt,
It’s the kind of error that comes from bad proofreading and reliance on spell check.
Well, yes, but we aren’t talking “untied states” here. “Imminently” isn’t a likely typo for “eminently,” in the sense that someone just hit the wrong keys. Someone had the sound of one word in his/her ears, and typed another one. Spell check won’t catch that any more than it will the pure finger accident that just happens also to be a word.
But it’s easy to see how someone could make a physical finger accident typing; it’s much more mysterious how it is that we tend to (mis)type one word while thinking of another that sounds like it. I’m afraid I once thought people who made there/their/they’re mistakes and the like were presumptively semiliterate clods, until I found myself doing the same thing personally. I do catch ‘em (so far), but they make it to the screen, for a second or two before I say “D’oh!” Obviously I am mentally “sounding out” words as I type, even when I am not aware of it, or such confusions wouldn’t happen.
December 18, 2009, 4:58 pmTwirip says:
Six words you don’t see very often.
December 18, 2009, 4:59 pmGuy says:
I’m not a cognitive scientist, but I accidentally type words that sound like the one I meant to type sometimes, there’s afterward/afterword above, and I mistyped gender instead of generational on another comment here a few days ago. I think my weirdest such mistake was a time I typed “use” when I meant “youth”.
December 18, 2009, 5:09 pmASlyJD says:
Related to the sounding out idea — has anyone had the experience of knowing the sound of the word they wanted to use, yet could not think of how to spell it?
I was writing a short story about Stambovsky v. Ackley, and I could not think of the word “exasperated.” The closest I could was “exaserbated,” which obviously has a slightly different meaning. :)
December 18, 2009, 5:38 pmA. Criminal says:
Twirip is right.
It’s even worse than that because number of results initially reported isn’t the actual number of results. Click through to the end of the list and you’ll get 373 actual hits on “eminently reasonable” (w/quotes) and 267 on “imminently reasonable” (not the 400-some and 150-some hits it reports at first).
I’m not surprised at much of anything along these lines since now we have a supreme court judgette who’s a remedial reader.
December 18, 2009, 5:45 pm“Imminently Reasonable” | Liberal Whoppers says:
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December 18, 2009, 6:33 pmChris Travers says:
Maybe they meant “immanently reasonable” as meaning something like “self-evident.”
December 18, 2009, 6:43 pmTweets that mention The Volokh Conspiracy » Blog Archive » “Imminently Reasonable” -- Topsy.com says:
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Eugene Volokh, Eugene Volokh. Eugene Volokh said: “Imminently Reasonable”: Reader Thomas Asch pointed me to a recent court decision that said something was “immi.. http://bit.ly/5Xsj2B [...]
December 18, 2009, 6:55 pmLeo Marvin says:
Care to elaborate?
December 18, 2009, 7:00 pmBC says:
The two words have discrete meanings. A discreet person should never use them incorrectly.
December 18, 2009, 7:24 pmDuffy Pratt says:
Of course, that sort of person wouldn’t leave an adverb hanging so far away from the verb either.
December 18, 2009, 7:42 pmrjs says:
Remember the movie My Cousin Vinny when the defendants’ attorney (played by Pesci), in his thick NY accent, referred to his clients as the “youths,” and the judge (played by Gwynne) kept asking him, “the two what?” Here’s a website that quotes the movie and has a sound clip of it. http://www.members.tripod.com/SoundBytes1/mcvinny/mcvinny.html. We’ll let law school students address the issue of whether the sound clip infringes someone’s copyright.
December 18, 2009, 7:43 pmMike McDougal says:
I would reflexively think the author is a moron.
December 18, 2009, 7:51 pmCornellian says:
I dread the day, which can’t be far off, when the spelling “loose” when “lose” is intended is such a common mistake as to become an acceptable variant spelling.
December 18, 2009, 8:56 pmMark N. says:
For what it’s worth, here is a nice juxtaposition of eminent, imminent, and reasonable:
(From State v. Comisford, 41 Nev. 175 [1917].)
December 18, 2009, 10:02 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
Cornellian,
I dread the day, which can’t be far off, when the spelling “loose” when “lose” is intended is such a common mistake as to become an acceptable variant spelling.
Hell, that one practically has free reign already.
December 18, 2009, 10:10 pmAllan Leedy says:
Another homophonophobe.
December 18, 2009, 11:11 pmAllan Leedy says:
There is no such thing as a free reign.
December 18, 2009, 11:13 pmMike G in Corvallis says:
My realator says “imminent domain,” but this begs the question of weather the usage is correct even if the lion’s share of them say that.
December 19, 2009, 4:43 amArkady says:
Perhaps some of the writers meant that reasonableness was about to break out in the opinion, just keep reading.
December 19, 2009, 6:44 amneurodoc says:
Here in the United States, with no history of monarchs except during the time of colonial rules, we pride ourselves on our democratic (small “d”) traditions. So, if you want this “momentarily” business definitively settled, then we should ask Americans to say whether they want it “our” way or “your” way, and I am very confident “we” would win that one. But, I think this is like Rome (as in “when in Rome do as the Romans do”), and now that you are established here in the United States and know our ways, you should leave behind those English ones, including their curious way with our common language.
Now, stop worrying that your bags are going to be delivered to you, only to be snatched back after a brief while. It is exceedingly unlikely that that will ever happen. The real concern, indeed very real, is that having entrusted them to the airlines, you will never again catch even the most fleeting of glances of them.)
December 19, 2009, 9:04 amneurodoc says:
“Eminently” and “imminently” are not words that one is likely to come across in US Today, a paper that is not beyond the capabilities of eighth graders. I assume that those whose vocabularies include these words appreciate their different meanings, though I wouldn’t bet on it.
December 19, 2009, 9:14 amChris Travers says:
Also one other thought crosses my mind has to do with the crossover between either homonyms or near-homonyms and mistakes.
For example, take the following statements: “Obama’s social programs are anything but niggardly.”
“She was a hoary old woman with an unassuming gaze.”
One has to wonder whether folks would read the first statement as extremely offensive, and whether saying it in a business providing public accomodations might lead to harrassment lawsuits. Even writing it might cause widespread offence, but I would have trouble seeing legal problems arise from it (certainly I have trouble seeing an argument that using the word “niggard” in print would constitute hostile workplace/public accomodation/etc. harassment because one is generally not responsible for the misunderstandings of others).
The second one would probably have folks running for their dictionaries if they read it, but if you spoke it……
December 19, 2009, 12:26 pmneurodoc says:
Can’t recall who it was, but it seems to me that a few years back a politician (here in DC?) used “niggardly” (correctly) and had to do a lot of ‘splaining to an aroused and angry populace.
It’s one thing to speak of a “hoary tale,” but quite another to speak of a “hoary woman,” even if listeners/readers know the difference between “hoary” and “whore-y.” I wouldn’t do it.
BTW, are you from somewhere in the Commonwealth, and that’s why you write “offence”?
December 19, 2009, 12:51 pmsiskiyou says:
He meant “free rain.” It is free, isn’t it?
Anyhow, now that “pant” means “trouser” when the word used to mean what my dog does, and “suitings” means a type of ready-made men’s clothing rather than cloth sold by the yard, it is far too late for preventative action.
December 19, 2009, 3:08 pmSuperSkeptic says:
Said in jest, but truly apropos. Words do not mean what they mean because one can look in an old dictionary and discern their meaning; they mean what they mean because people, by and large, take them to mean something or other. Look at the word “liberal” today, for example. If the USA today readers in the USA want imminently to mean eminently, or vice versa, then lo and behold it soon shall.
December 19, 2009, 3:24 pmsiskiyou says:
Super: You are exactly right, of course, and 1965 is indeed old. My point is that excessively rapid mutability of language can lead to the inability to initiate or decode communication.
December 19, 2009, 4:02 pmneurodoc says:
What I said I meant entirely in jest to tease the Anglophone speaker, who called to my attention something that never occurred to me, namely the incorrect use of “momentarily.” Truth be told, I’m not inclined toward the permissive where words are concerned. I’d rather see meaning preserved rather than lost, as it generally is when frank error (e.g., “imminently” and “eminently”) is the cause of change. Granted that word usage tends to evolve over time, with some words taken on rather different meanings, at times ones quite different than the original ones (“fulsome”), but the more gradual the better. It is not the same thing when a wholly new word is coined, that is a neologism comes into being, since then it is not a matter of error, failure to appreciate the original meaning, conflation of two words, etc.; it’s a matter of a semantic void being filled.
December 19, 2009, 5:08 pmGuy says:
Reminds me of the guy who claimed to nearly be fired from Taco Bell because he talked about a “pedagogical approach” in a memo, apparently a VP said she wouldn’t stand for perverts working in her company. He says after the confusion was cleared up a memo came out saying that no one should use words that can’t be found in a local Sunday newspaper in future memos.
December 19, 2009, 7:34 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
siskiyou,
He meant “free rain.” It is free, isn’t it?
She (meaning me) meant to make an admittedly lame joke, assuming that it would be easily understood given my participation upthread, but Mr. Leedy didn’t take my meaning. Tough to gauge the audience, but the fault’s probably mine.
December 19, 2009, 9:17 pmreadery says:
Finally, TRUTH IN COURT DECISIONS!
Readery approves!
December 19, 2009, 9:24 pmreadery says:
eminent = extrinsic/objective
imminent = in my opinion/subjective
December 19, 2009, 9:25 pmsiskiyou says:
Ms. Thompson:
Sorry–got your pun and attempted to follow up in kind. Oh, well. I also hoped that someone would pick up on “preventative”, which is becoming more common although it is treated by some (myself included) as an unword. I try to be clever and end up looking not very bright.
December 19, 2009, 9:46 pmreadery says:
In C.S. Lewis’ Screwtape Letters, arch-devils are referred to as “your imminence” rather than “your eminence” to reflect the same distinction.
December 20, 2009, 11:49 amChris Travers says:
That’s just batty. In fact if the VP in question had gray hair, I would call her a hoary bat….
December 21, 2009, 2:48 pmChrisTS says:
Still with the perverse sense of humor. Have you no decency, Sir?
December 21, 2009, 11:01 pmChrisTS says:
Sorry, Babe, it’s here [or, 'hear'] in undergraduate writing. I cannot tell you how often I encounter ‘manor’ for ‘manner’ – because Word Spell check only recognizes the former.
December 21, 2009, 11:05 pmChrisTS says:
Ok, you fussbudgets, I challenge you to the ‘language-Nazi’ title bestowed on me by my spouse.
I am confused and, well, sickened when I hear educated people say that they are nauseous. I want to say, “Oh, no; I don’t find you sickening at all.”
December 21, 2009, 11:10 pmneurodoc says:
My wife told me that the Taco Bell advertising campaign with the chihauhau caused a huge upsurge in the popularity of the breed and puppy mills started turning them out in great numbers. Now, the popularity has waned and the supply of chihauhaus exceeds the demand for chihauhaus, with shelters euthanizing many. That’s what Taco Bell wrought.
December 22, 2009, 1:36 amneurodoc says:
I expect that only a minority of college students know the nauseous/nauseated distinction.
December 22, 2009, 1:45 amJack Jones says:
Exaserbated? Exaserbated?
December 24, 2009, 6:00 pm