Re: On a daily basis

On Mon, 25 Feb 2008 18:19:29 +0000, Nick
<1-nospam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

lyricaljohnnny@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
I hear this misused daily.

As an accountant, I may calculate interest on a daily basis, but I
would probably do it once a year.

The general use of "on an x basis" to mean "every x" or "once an x" is a
bugbear of mine.

I don't read aue "on a daily basis", I do it daily. But you try getting
anyone who writes businessese to say that.

Its popularity seems to be a fairly recent development. Gowers,
writing in the 1940s, has a section on the misuse of "basis", but is
mild in his treatment of this usage; "You may well allow it to stand
if you have written of staff paid on a weekly basis or of a house let
on a monthly basis, but do not despise 'by the week' or 'by the month'
as somewhat less pompos alternatives". He follows this with a list of
examples "which would not escape so easily".

My favorite among his finds is "Prices are basis prices per ton for
the representative-basis-pricing specification and size and quantity".

--
Don Aitken
Mail to the From: address is not read.
To email me, substitute "clara.co.uk" for "freeuk.com"
.

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