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Now, do you understand what I'm trying to get across here?
Yep. You only have to worry about clarifying (with a verb) if you're publishing, as otherwise by far the most common interpretation of "Goals by 2005" would be the correct one.
My suggested ambiguity is pretty much academic.
I think part of the difficulty (well, for me anyway ) is that a goal is something you have now that happens in the future. "Future goals" is a tautology, but on the other hand it may help create a distinction from "past goals" that you have or haven't achieved already.
Reminds me of the World Cup final, when I was telling people "I'm not expecting to be surprised", meaning that I was expecting the favourites (Brazil) to walk it. Logically speaking the statement is a tautology, but in practice it's meaningful and informative. I feel this sleight of hand is also caused by a confusion of tenses.
But I can't quite put my finger on it.
Suppose this is all getting into linguistics and philosophy.
Fisk
(candidate for VP of Procrastinators Anonymous, 2005)
My goal is to be alive in 2005.
The statistics are not favorable.
Don't worry, Uncle Bill-- you'll always live in my heart. [big smooch e]
- - and anyway, Bill, Disraeli was right about 'em!
(My personal creed is that I am immortal - until proved otherwise!)
to adopt the goal? I never saw this expression before and my Longman says only “to achieve the goal”. Does it mean “to adopt the plan’’? Is it an American expression?
to adopt the goal? I never saw this expression before
I'm not surprised, vika - you wouldn't have call to use this expression much! Perhaps if you were talking about a company adopting the goals of its parent company.
We were trying to express fairly subtle (almost philosophical) distinctions of meaning, so the language wasn't commonplace.
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