Comments on: Not Surprising, This Sounds Awkward

By: Jonathon

Jonathon — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 17:35:48 +0000

I just came across another example in a proofread of the same book: “Interesting, Lehrer called for additional study. . . .” It doesn’t look like a fragment that was tacked onto a sentence. Obvious, the writer has a problem with sentence adverbs.

Bruce: I’m not sure what you’re talking about, unless you think there’s something wrong with the word “relevancy.” But that would be silly, because it’s in the dictionary and actually predates “relevance.”

By: Bruce

Bruce — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 18:49:40 +0000

My heart skipped a beat when I read “relevancy.” Ooh, genius! Either that, or it’s bait and I just bit.

By: DeWitt

DeWitt — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 08:42:37 +0000

Could the examples be an attempt at brevity?

1) “It is not surprising the data show that…”
2) “It is quite possible yada yada yada”?

An attempt to mimic speech, where such phrases are used as fragments or interjections.

Example: “Professor, the monkey killed the rabbit with its tail!”
“Not surprising. In fact, monkeys perform many tasks with their tails.”

By: Jonathon

Jonathon — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 17:42:17 +0000

Good question. In COCA, “not surprisingly” outnumbers “unsurprisingly” by about 14 to 1. A Google search turns up 3.5 times as many hits for “not surprisingly”. I’m not sure how to explain the distribution, but for whatever reason, it seems most people prefer “not surprisingly”.

By: Braden

Braden — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 21:36:01 +0000

Ugh, super awkward. Also, why not just “unsurprisingly”?