Going forward? Sounds like backward thinking

Going forward, I am declaring war on the phrase “going forward.”

In my capacity as Official Defender of the American-English Language, I have embarked on many lonely crusades. For instance, I have railed against both the proliferation of the word “sucks” and the overuse of the phrase “perfect storm.” (In short, I believe it sucks to overuse “perfect storm.”)

Yet my campaign against “going forward” is fundamentally different. This phrase is not merely overused. This phrase is completely unnecessary in every single instance.

Yet this useless phrase has become an indispensable part of business, political, and, I am sad to admit, journalistic jargon. Just the other day, I heard it used three times in the space of about an hour, in three different realms:

By a political commentator: “Hillary Clinton’s campaign strategy, going forward, will be to focus on …”

By a football announcer: “This team needs to a lay a foundation, going forward, of establishing a running game …

By a management executive: “Going forward, our plan will be …”

Pardon me if this sounds forward, but isn’t “going forward” just slightly moronic? Is it possible, for instance, to have a strategy going backward?

Take out the phrase “going forward” in all three instances, and the meaning remains exactly the same.

To understand why, it helps to understand one basic concept of physics – one that, frankly, is not all that complicated.

Time goes only one direction. It does not go backward, despite what you have read in your comic books. It does not go sideways, except for certain people who choose to stay 39 forever. Time, which rules us all, goes only forward.

Since the phrase refers, 100 percent of the time, to time (as opposed to, say, yardage), we can reach only one logical conclusion: It is never necessary to specify which direction we are going, because we are always going the same direction, at least until such time as the universe suffers a reversal in the time-space continuum.

Hey, that could happen someday. Going forward.

So, you can decide for yourselves. Let me toss out a few common “going forward” constructions and you tell me how necessary they are:

“Going forward into 2008, we need to refocus on our core mission.”

“Here’s what I propose we do, going forward.”

“What exactly, should we be looking for in this industry, going forward?”

“To be or not to be – that is the question going forward” (this, from a philosopher-poet-executive).

Oh, all right, there may be a few occasions when “going forward” might have its uses. I suppose that it can be used to clarify the distinction between “now” and “in the future.”

For instance, you might reasonably say, “Right now, we need to hunker down and ride out this storm. But, going forward, we need to invest in some raincoats.”

Still, it’s nothing that the words “then” and “soon” haven’t been able to handle for centuries.

And even though I just said that “going forward” refers to time, 100 percent of the time, I can imagine isolated cases in which it refers to actual distance.

Possibly acceptable usage: “Shaun Alexander needs to gain six inches on this play, going forward.”

Always unacceptable usage: “Shaun Alexander needs to get his head into this game, going forward.”

As I take a breath here, I realize that I have possibly, just maybe, become a little over-agitated over this essentially harmless phrase. I’m sorry.

This is my own problem. I’ll try to get over it. Still, I can’t help but worry that the English language is, you know, going backward.