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

[beckyl.livejournal.com]

Proceed seems to me to be used to report something, putting an extra bit of distance between the person reporting and the subject of the report. It's more measured and less immediate, I think.

OTOH I'm pre coffee, and my be waffling half-remembered, pretentious English Lit nonsense...