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

[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.