Thursday, January 22, 2009
Word News: The 'Meet With' Invasion
I see 'meet with' is becoming standard useage over here. It creeps into this picture caption. It sounds wrong to me, even though I've been hearing it said by Americans all my life. The meaning of the word 'meet' surely makes 'with' unnecessary and, in fact, ungrammatical. But, if we must have 'meet with', then I think we should also have 'meet without' as in, 'Yesterday I met without Barack Obama'. It makes perfect sense to me.
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A blog about, among other things, imaginary ideas - What ifs? and Imagine thats. What if photographs looked nothing like what we see with our eyes? Imagine that the Berlin Wall had never come down. What if we were the punchline of an interminable joke? All contributions welcome.
Could be wrong, but I get the sense that a slight distinction in meaning has developed (or is developing). To ’meet’ someone is to bump into them on the street, casually and unexpectedly; to ‘meet with’ them is to hold a meeting ( “Obama is due to meet with the joint chiefs of staff …”).
ReplyDeleteand don't get me started on 'visit with' . . .
ReplyDeleteJust as a contrary observation, American usage is 'to write someone'; in Britain we 'write to someone'. I do shudder at 'meet with' and 'visit with'.
ReplyDelete