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Off-topic English question, if I may. ”all but disappeared” means it disappeared, right?
by soneca 3y ago
Off-topic English question, if I may.
”all but disappeared” means it disappeared, right?
- mc32 3y agoIt’s an understatement but there may be monies lying around in equipment and IP and some other corners.
- pyb 3y agoYes
- js8 3y agoNo, it actually means "everything else" happened, except disappearing. The usage in the title is wrong, IMHO, but I aḿ not a native speaker. (Though I would bet there is David Mitchell video out there ranting about this topic.)
- the_mitsuhiko 3y agoWhy wrong? The website is still up. There are remnants still around.
- RugnirViking 3y agoYou're correct, but the specific usage "all but disappeared" is used in English in this case to mean it has declined so much that there is almost nothing left (everything bad has happened to it, the only thing left is for it to be gone completely). Like right now I would say the snow we had last week has all but disappeared, because there technically are small piles where people had shoveled it or built snowmen, but it has functionally gone. Mitchell is funny but I doubt he ranted about this one because it strikes me as old-timey and posh, and he tends to rant about new things ;)
- BobaFloutist 3y agoNope! It means it got as close to disappearing as possible without fully disappearing.
- lovich 3y agoIt’s a hedged statement meaning you might find some bit of it laying around, but that it has functionally disappeared. It’s a common way of phrasing things in articles so they aren’t accused of lying because someone found the equivalent of a single dollar bill of assets and points to that as evidence that it hasn’t “disappeared”
- ta988 3y agoThis is one of the confusing idioms. I found that page that explains all but, anything but and everything but: https://jakubmarian.com/all-but-vs-anything-but-vs-everything-but-in-english/ https://jakubmarian.com/all-but-vs-anything-but-vs-everythin... A lot of native speakers tend to use them inappropriately. An interesting song if you are learning english that shows some of the common horrors people commit is Weird al "Word crimes".
- soneca 3y agoGreat link, thanks. “Word crimes” is a great song indeed. More than learning English, I am a Weird Al fan. In this case, it translates well to ”nearly disappeared”. Which matches a sibling comment explanation that it means “everything happened for it to disappear except it didn’t quite disappeared yet”. But also makes sense another sibling comment explanation that it is a hedge. Like “for all purposes it actually disappeared, but let me say it nearly disappeared for those who will point out that the site and the company still technically exists”.