1

Some speakers intend that "forward" (in time) means sooner.

For example a writer at this link posted the title

"Could COVID-19 have brought deaths forward"

and elaborated thus:

Is it possible the combination of COVID-19 and absence of effective treatments took the lives of people who would have otherwise died later in 2020.

In other words, to bring deaths forward in time means deaths sooner. In general, according to some people, an event moved forward in time means sooner. This seems to be the prevailing meaning when securities markets people are speaking.

Events in time are usually depicted along a horizontal axis with distantly past events to the left of the present time and forecasts, if any, are depicted to the right. In fact there is such a depiction at the link. With this picture in mind, "forward" seems to be later in time. That is a starkly different or opposite interpretation.

What do you think is the generally prevailing usage?

I quoted the writer to preserve this example in case his or her question fails the website quality standard. If it fails the internet link may be broken.

H2ONaCl
  • 1,240
  • What if you map time on a vertical axis? – Hot Licks Jul 15 '20 at 21:18
  • 1
    Oy, you are clouding the picture with logic: "With this picture in mind, "forward" seems to be later in time." English doesn't work the way we picture it to work. It works the way it is used. – Yosef Baskin Jul 15 '20 at 21:42
  • @HotLicks we don't need the image. I might say "I've written enough about the Great Depression and will move forward to the subject of World War Two." – H2ONaCl Jul 15 '20 at 22:04
  • @H2ONaCl - That's talking about the past, not the future. – Hot Licks Jul 15 '20 at 22:37
  • 1
    @YosefBaskin English is used the way it's used. It doesn't work if listeners have a picture of how it works, but some speaker used it in a contrary way, thus confusing or misleading the listeners. – Rosie F Aug 15 '20 at 04:44

4 Answers4

1

For me, the critical verb is "bring" (by the way I don't agree with Lexico in @GEdgar's answer)

If you send something or push/put something, you move it further away.

Let's push that meeting forward a couple of weeks.

If you bring something or pull something, you move it nearer.

Let's bring that meeting forward. Can you manage tomorrow?

chasly - supports Monica
  • 37,215
1

To bring forward is a phrasal verb:

to change the date or time of an event so that it happens earlier

The tennis match has been brought forward to 1:00 p.m.

They brought the date of the wedding forward so her cousins could attend.

So, in agreement with another answer, bring is critical; it’s not a question of whether forward appears most often in phrases about the future, but what forward means in bring forward.

Macmillan specifically describes to bring forward as a transitive phrasal verb, but it appears in other dictionaries as well.

Macmillan https://www.macmillandictionary.com/us/dictionary/american/bring-forward

Xanne
  • 14,836
0

Yes, sometimes it is used this way. But sometimes not.

forward (also forwards) ADVERB
3 Toward the future; ahead in time.
‘from that day forward, the assembly was at odds with us’
3.1 To an earlier time.
‘the special issue has been moved forward to winter’
Lexico

GEdgar
  • 25,177
  • O.K., the word can be used in two ways that are the exact opposites of each other. But the OP has already pointed that out; the question was what is the generally prevailing usage. – jsw29 Jul 15 '20 at 22:06
-1

Sorry to say but the assumption you make in the title and first paragraphs of your question (which BTW doesn't come across as a question, just saying) may very well be just falling for a case of less perfect English. No offense to the writer you linked to, but casual usage of English on this network by a multi-national community does not sufficiently show that correct English was even used, which - brought forward as a kind of proof - puts your assumption on rather sandy ground.

Said poster might have written "Could COVID-19 have advanced death(s) on the timescale" [for some accounted for as victims]. The wording you found feels rather off to me in that place (although it is grammatically valid going by the CDE so that might just be anecdotical evidence of this person's own experience :-)

That said, for all I know and by the proper link to the CDE, the prevailing usage of "bring forward" is to make known", specifically as in an argument or an application (for something to happen or be considered).

Additionally, although that is oddly not listed in that CDE entry, I have often seen it used in a sense of to further as in a matter (which can, of course, result in something being speeded up). I don't think Google Ngram is very strong as a tool in this case, but it does seem at least in part to corroborate that impression.

somebody_other
  • 569
  • 2
  • 7
  • @ the downvoter - I don't always ask this but I'd be interested in this case if you would care to explain. – somebody_other Jul 15 '20 at 22:59
  • I don't know why it was down-voted but if you looked at the whole context, it was clear that the writer was referring to a shift in time; not to making a thing known. I quoted some context to show that. The link is now broken. Regardless, in my experience other people talk this way. – H2ONaCl Jul 30 '20 at 19:37