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"daily basis" vs "daily" . . .

Posted by R. Berg on March 29, 2003

In Reply to: "Daily basis" vs "daily" and similar usage posted by al on March 29, 2003

: In the US it seem virtually no one ever says daily or weekly or monthly without adding the word basis. Here one might say "I feed my dog on a daily basis" rather than just saying "I feed my dog daily". Is this just my perception? Is it just a US thing? I don't remember this being the usage thirty years ago; is it recent?

Thirty years ago, when I was a young copy editor, writers wrote "on a daily basis" and editors executed the deletions. Now much more unedited writing reaches the reading public.

The 1972 edition of Strunk and White, "The Elements of Style," says:

Omit needless words.
Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the sam reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts.

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