Speakers in the business world and in government are fond of saying “going forward” to mean “from now on,” “in the future,” or even “now.” It gives a sense of action, purpose, and direction that appeals to many people.

However many other people find it pretentious and annoying, especially when it is used simply to indicate that the future is being talked about. Since in English our verbs do this job nicely, “going forward” is often superfluous. In a statement like “Going forward, we’re going to have to budget more for advertising,” the sentence would be just as clear and less cluttered if the first two words were dropped.

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