Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Stoney Breyer" <stoneyb AT touchwood.net>]

-----Original Message-----
 "indefinitely extended time" is not the same as "indefinite time"; the
former means a time extended without limit, whereas the latter simply
means an uncertain time.

SB: I think not. Time extendend without limit would be "infinitely
extended"; "indefinitely extended" implies "extended, but I don't know
how far."

One of the issues was whether this phrase was a regularly used and 
meaningful English phrase. Its apparently very restricted use, outside 
the specific context for which it is being promoted, strongly suggests 
that it is not. 

SB: I concur that it is not. It's bad English, with unfortunate
overtones of legal weaseling. Syntactical inversion is a constant NWT
mannerism, but in this particular case my professional guess is that
whoever coined the phrase was trying to find something that would borrow
legal/proverbial resonance from the familiar "from time immemorial".


I note, however, that the phrase is *becoming* regularly used
(presumably by writers raised in the NWT tradition). If you'll revisit
your Google results you'll find "to time indefinite" in, inter alia, a
romantic short story ... personal wedding congratulations ... and a
sentence in a Wikipedia article which purports to translate a diary
entry by on the elder Lucas Cranach: "But I know these things happenth
not, for the marriage of her and I shall last to time indefinite". It
speaks for itself.

Stoney Breyer
Writer/Touchwood, Inc.