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- 11-Jan-2012, 21:15 #1
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"how various soever" What does it mean? -> "how various soever".
- 11-Jan-2012, 21:18 #2
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Teacher Re: "how various soever" It means nothing. Where did you see/hear it?
Context is always important; labelling is rarely important.
- 11-Jan-2012, 21:33 #3
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Re: "how various soever" Danny, it's important that you quote at least the whole sentence in which you have seen an expression you're having trouble with. Without context, it may, and often is, impossible to understand.
Perhaps your phrase comes from this sentence:
Though there are many different forms of religion among them, yet all these, how various soever, agree in the main point, which is...
(Utopia)
I believe "how various soever" means however various they be here.
- 11-Jan-2012, 21:44 #4
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Teacher Re: "how various soever" You may well be right, BC. However, this translation was done by Gilbert Burnet, Bishop of Salisbury, in 1684. how various soever may have been good English then, but it is meaningless today.
Originally Posted by birdeen's call 
Context is always important; labelling is rarely important.
- 12-Jan-2012, 14:54 #5
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Threadstarter / Original Poster Re: "how various soever" "How various soever may be the modes in which experiments are performed on living animals, pain is general and necessary attendant on them."
I saw this in a book about vivisection...
"how various soever may have been good English then, but it is meaningless today."
So do you mean that it is no longer correct to use this phrase?
Anyway, thanks for help!
- 12-Jan-2012, 15:35 #6
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Re: "how various soever" Hi Danny,
Welcome to the forums.
I would have to GUESS that it was intended to mean "Whatever vaious means are used."
I've never seen "soever" used in modern text.I'm not a teacher, but I write for a living. Please don't ask me about 2nd conditionals, but I'm a safe bet for what reads well in (American) English.
- 12-Jan-2012, 16:10 #7
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Teacher Re: "how various soever" Yes. I have found one example of it dated 2009, but it looks very strange indeed. I have found quite a few other examples of 'how various soever', but the next latest was from a book published in 1820. Originally Posted by danny777
The Corpus of Historical American has just four twentieth-century citations for 'how + adjective+soever', compared with 82 citations for 'however+adjective' in the 1990s alone.
Context is always important; labelling is rarely important.
- 12-Jan-2012, 16:31 #8
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Threadstarter / Original Poster Re: "how various soever" Ok. Thank you. Your comments were helpful
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