Now that we’re almost done with Level 4, it’s time to—wait a minute! Did you notice anything wrong with what I just said?
Does anything about the phrase “now that we’re almost done with Level 4” sound incorrect to you? If so, you may be an untapped member of the League of Inflexible Super-Purists—for which the acronym, quite appropriately, is LISP.
For years hard-core purists have criticized the use of the word done to mean finished, as in the sentence “I’m just trying to get the job done.” It’s true, as they assert, that using done in this way is informal, but that in itself does not make it incorrect. Sometimes informal usage is inappropriate or objectionable, but as Rudolph Flesch argues persuasively in his classic guide, The Art of Readable Writing (1949), most good, clear writing and speech is largely composed of everyday, practical words. Moreover, it’s a mistake to assume that every rule about language is a good rule, and the best writers know that it’s sometimes necessary to break a rule to achieve a desired effect.
So now let me tell you the story of done versus finished.
In 1965, the eminent usage commentator Theodore M. Bernstein echoed the sentiments of many educated speakers who had been pilloried by their parents and teachers for allegedly misusing done. “The word should not be used in good writing to mean finished or completed,” Bernstein stated in The Careful Writer. “It is proper to say, ‘The roast is done,’ but this does not mean it is finished; it means the roast is sufficiently cooked.”
By 1977, however, Bernstein had changed his “don’t” to a “maybe.” In Dos, Don’ts, and Maybes of English Usage, he noted that in 1969 “the usage panel of the American Heritage Dictionary split 53 to 47 percent in favor of…done to mean completed or finished.”
Bernstein continues: “Webster’s unabridged, second edition [1934] labels it colloquial, but the third edition [1961] finds nothing wrong with it. Neither do Webster’s New World, the Random House and the big Oxford English Dictionary. The verdict would seem to be that done in the sense of finished is well on the way to acceptability, if it has not already arrived.”Discerning observers of the language like Bernstein know that it’s essential to question change and resist it when it seems objectionable, but they also know that it’s obstinate and myopic to maintain that something is unacceptable in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
In 1987, the Random House Dictionary of the English Language, second edition, unabridged, confirmed Bernstein’s conjecture in unequivocal terms with a usage note that said, “In the adjectival sense, ‘completed, finished, through,’ done dates from the 14th century and is entirely standard.” Other current dictionaries concur and list the “finished, completed” definition without comment.
Based on that evidence, it would seem that the acceptability of done meaning “finished” is a done deal. And with that pronouncement, we are now done with Level 4.
