An ordinary copper, who's patrolling his beat...

[venta]

Last night, walking through the railway station, I overhead part of a mobile phone conversation.

"And then, he proceeded to..."

That was all. The speaker's voice was fairly expressionless.

But it made me think: only two kinds of people in the world "proceed". One, policemen. Two, people you're pissed off with.

No one says, casually, in a narrative "... and then he proceeded to go to Waitrose, and bought me some flowers. Wasn't that nice?"

No, it's always "... and then he proceeded to go to Waitrose, can you believe the cheek of it?"

Presumably people just do nice things; but they proceed to do bad things.

Comments

[venta.livejournal.com]

As a narrative device, it's slightly filed in the same place in my head as making people turn round before they speak.

"I did this, so she turns round and says '...'"

I saw my uncle on Tuesday, and in his world people appear to be constantly revolving.

[celestialweasel.livejournal.com]

I remember some writer saying that there are two forms of this - the whirling dervish (as you have described) and the morris dancer as in
'So she came up to me and said... so I went up to him and said' (I may not have got the phrasing right as I am more familiar with the dervish idiom).

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

Ah, I live in South London, where nobody ever 'says' anything - they 'chat at'. As in, "he was like chattin at me, so I chatted back at him, and he chatted back at me..."

Which just conjures a rather endearing image of urban 'yoot' sitting down for a good old natter over a cup of tea and a digestive.