the question is the “when once” at the beginning of this paragraph.
When once the Latin tongue had ceased to be a normal vehicle for communication, and was replaced as such by the vernacular language, then it most speedily became a mental gymnastic, the supremely “dead” language….(extracted from: Approaches & Methods – Jack C. Richards). Admittedly what I couldn’t digest and get along with is, placing of “when” and “once” together, while to me “once” in this sentence denotes the same as “when”.if not for emphasis or suchlike then how they can be used this way together so that this combination of these two words, to me seems like you say: as I was wondering how to operate the machine, he instructed me which button I should press, then immediately at once I did the right one. You see in the above example which I made it myself to make my point crystal clear, you will notice that we can’t have “immediately at once”, these two words together,can we?.
thanks for your answers and comment
2007-01-24
02:45:43
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5 answers
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asked by
Mr.question
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Words & Wordplay