At 13:58 29/03/2017 -0500, D L Tolleson wrote:
I would point out, however, that something can be "improved" or it
can be "new," but marketing gurus not withstanding, it cannot be
"new" AND "improved."
I think it can, providing that you see this as a hendiadys.
If I say it's nice and warm today, I appear to be saying that it is
both nice and warm, but that's not so. You can see this since it is
not the same thing as saying that it is warm and nice. Instead the
expression means that it is nicely warm - warm to a nice extent. The
logical expression, "nicely warm", has two words in different parts
of speech creating a single idea: the adverb "nicely" modifying the
adjective "warm" to create the single idea of "nicely warm". But the
figure of speech hendiadys (= one through two) allows us to parade
the two words as if they were parallel adjectives making two ideas
but actually to mean the single idea.
If I work for the queen (I don't), I may get a "tied cottage", living
accommodation that comes with the post (not necessarily anything you
would call a cottage). This is provided by favour of the queen, and
the respectful word you have to use when referring to the queen's
favour is not "royal" (as you might imagine) but "gracious". So you'd
expect this to be called a "*gracious favour residence", but it
isn't: the proper term is "grace and favour residence". Again, a
hendiadys of two nouns representing what should strictly be an
adjective qualifying a noun.
"New and improved" is surely a hendiadys for "newly improved" - which
is very probably what is meant.
I would also suggest that if one improves existing documentation,
the act of writing it is sufficiently implied to forego having to
use the word "write."
(Er, you mean "forgo", of course; "forego" means to precede.)
Brian Barker
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