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I still don't understand: wouldn't "going concern" if it had that origin mean the opposite - i.e. that it was going to fail soon? I would naively say it's "with
by tgb 10y ago
I still don't understand: wouldn't "going concern" if it had that origin mean the opposite - i.e. that it was going to fail soon? I would naively say it's "without a going concern" for a stable business.
- mirimir 10y agoSo "concern" is something that matters to someone. Here, a business. And "going" means that it can keep going, that it won't stop because of some failure or limitation.
- jerf 10y agoEnglish has changed a lot over the centuries. I, um, don't mean that as a snarky comment or anything; it really is in a lot of ways the best explanation. It's weird and fascinating how words slowly shift over time and how ever though "go" or "concern" never necessarily quite "changed their meaning", it still sometimes wanders a little bit and over the course of centuries it can add up to a surprising amount. Phrases sometimes can get "stuck" and survive past their constituent words having their meanings shift away.