I can find little use for the word currently.
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I went to a computer class recently and somebody placed on the door a sign saying “room currently in use”. If the sign had said “room in use” would the meaning have changed?
I have seen street stalls say something like “this stall is currently unoccupied”. Disregarding the obvious – nobody was there – if the sign had said “this stall is unoccupied” would that have been different from the sign saying “currently”?
I have learnt not to make a scene, because my wife doesn’t like it. But I seethe in silence and usually go and have a cup of coffee while I calm down.
I don’t claim to be the world’s best in my choice of words, but I react most times I see the word currently. I am learning to control my feelings, however.
The word had a quiet existence for years until the past 30 or so years when people suddenly decided to use it in all the unusual places. Currently goes back many years. In 1380 the word meant the flowing of a stream. Shakespeare had many goes at this word, when he said currents that glorify the banks that “bound them in” . He made use of this word on other occasions.
Emily Fitzsmmons in The Great Gatsby said in 1925 “boats against the current”. All the early references for currently refer to water, whether flowing along a steam or flowing from a roof or a gutter “to let the water run off”.
Around the 14th century the word started to take on an expanded meaning. For instance., the word referred to the passage of time or a person’s speech.
The word, so far as I can tell, means “running”. It comes from old French corant which came from Latin courre. You can get courier and even corridor from this, if you try hard enough.
John Ayto says the sense of “in the present time” seems to have started in the 17th century. He gives no explanation, however.
Probably some words that are synonyms for currently are at the present time, straight away, forthwith, pronto, right now, right away. But even these don’t apply in such a cases as “the room is currently in use”.
My big dictionary recorded the first use, in print, for currently as 1841, when James Henry Leigh Hunt said in Seer (or common places refreshed) “we are truly in a state of transition, of currency rather”. Don’t ask me what he meant.
Of course, the dictionary went through all the other meanings of currency, such as money. Burt we can trace currently to James Henry Leigh Hunt in 1841. He will forever be in my bad books.
lauriebarber.com; lbword@midcoast.com.au.