Weird US English Part 436

[timtak]

I keep finding expressions in American English that I would correct in my students.

Today I got an email from an American using the term "undergraduate advising." Had she been a student I might have advised her not to use the gerund when there is a perfectly good noun: advice.

But then, perhaps advising means something other than advice? There is even a page called "Advising Advice"
Advising Advice
I thought it was a joke, but no, it is American.

I can remember running across Chicago train station when I heard that my train would be stopping "momentarily".

[Raymott]

I keep finding expressions in American English that I would correct in my students.

Today I got an email from an American using the term "undergraduate advising." Had she been a student I might have advised her not to use the gerund when there is a perfectly good noun: advice.

But then, perhaps advising means something other than advice? There is even a page called "Advising Advice"
Advising Advice
I thought it was a joke, but no, it is American.

I can remember running across Chicago train station when I heard that my train would be stopping "momentarily".

Yes, it sounds weird to me too. But how do you feel about 'counselling' in the same situation?

[Barb_D]

What do you call the people who help students with their course selection so that they are taking all the classes they need to complete their majors? We call those academic advisors. What they do is academic advising.

What do you call that?

momentarily [ˈməʊməntərəlɪ -trɪlɪ]
adv
1. for an instant; temporarily
2. from moment to moment; every instant
3. US and Canadian very soon Also (for senses 1, 2) momently [ˈməʊməntlɪ]

-- I have never used "momently" -- do you use that?

[lauralie2]

Today I got an email from an American using the term "undergraduate advising." Had she been a student I might have advised her not to use the gerund when there is a perfectly good noun: advice.

I'm interested in seeing the context. Would you post it?

_____________________________

Traditionally, momentarily means "for a moment", but its use to mean "in a moment" is sometimes disputed. [Merriam Webster] and [Dictionary.com] give this latter usage a standard entry without comment, while OED and Chambers [Free English Dictionary (UK)] tag it "N.Amer." AHD4 [bartleby.com] has a usage note indicating that 59% of their Usage Panel deems this usage "unacceptable".

• Disputed usage: Your feature presentation will begin momentarily.
• Undisputed usage: The flash from the atom bomb momentarily lit up the night sky.

Source

[Tdol]

I heard a friend using momentarily several times to mean in a moment in the UK this summer, something I had never heard used by a BrE speaker before, and hadn't heard him use it, so it's a recent adoption by him- maybe it's starting to appear in BrE too.

[Barb_D]

T, what do you call what we call academic advisors? What do you call the service they are performing?

[Raymott]

T, what do you call what we call academic advisors? What do you call the service they are performing?

It's academic counselling here. And career counselling.
Student counselling is also used for the psychological type of work as well, but the meaning of "counselling" is apparently broader here.
You can see a counsellor for career advice, but not for 'advising'.

[Tdol]

In the UK too- counselling has a broad meaning.

[Barb_D]

We too have career counseling (with that strange "one-L" spelling, which I've never understood), but academic advising at the university level, performed by academic advisors.

In middle and high school, we have guidance counselors. They have a range of responsibilities.

[Ouisch]

"Momentarily" is weird English? I'll admit that "undergraduate advising" sounds a bit pompous/overblown, but that's how AmE often is in academe. But "momentarily" has been used on common parlance as long as I can remember....when I was a wee little tot watching my cartoons on TV I remember sighing when an announcer would cut in with breaking news of some sort, or a presidential news conference, and assure us that "regular programming will resume momentarily." It was never momentarily; it was five minutes of the actual news, then 30 minutes of some analyst telling us what we'd just heard, etc. It didn't matter to me that we might have been moments away from a national disaster, the important thing was that Underdog was kaput for the day.

(And if you want to talk about "weird" English expressions, ask an AmE ESL teacher about the odd Britishisms we have to explain to students, and Bob's your uncle they'll waffle on for a fortnight. )