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

[ylla.livejournal.com]

Is it different in written narrative?

'She set the bags on the table and proceeded to make a cup of tea.'

There's more decisiveness, or something, in that than if she just made the tea without proceeding, but it's not *outrageous* :)

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

Would you write that, though? Can you point me to a text (that isn't Twilight) in which anyone 'proceeds' to undertake mundane tasks?