Heck, I ** hope**it hasn’t, but I suppose it will be interesting to find out.
I’d certainly hate to hear a travel announcement suggesting that we will land “momentarily” in airport X - it does rather sound as if one would have to be very very fast in leaving the aeroplane.
In one episode of the sitcom “Sports Night”, currently in early morning repeats on Comedy Central, this very bit (including the airport joke) is used as a running joke.
Just another instance of life, or at least this thread, of imitating art.
Well, jumping in from the eastern side of the Atlantic, I’d have to say momentarily means “for a moment”, as in to pause momentarily before doing something. Hence “we will be landing momentarily” does bring to mind images of passengers leaping from an aircraft as it briefly touches down on the runway…
But, the “in a moment” meaning does seem to be creeping in. [flamebait]I blame those language-mangling Americans.[/flamebait]
Well, momentarily is the adverb form of momentary, which doesn’t seem to have the meaning of “imminent”. It means “lasting only for a moment” according to dictionary.com.
While I will usually be proud to admit that we Americans have shamelessly manhandled one of your precious words, I don’t think we can take credit this time. According to the dictionary, momentarily = “instantly” is an archaic defintion.
Ah, but “instantaeously” means “in an instant” in the sense of “during a very short period of time”. Thus the Big Bang happened in an instant; it was an instanteous event; it happened instantaneously. It does not mean “in a very short time from now”. You would not say “the manager will be with you instantaneously”, meaning that the manager is going to arrive very soon.
As has been pointed out above, “momentarily” in British English means “for a short time”, but not “in a short time from now”. In American English, it can have either meaning, depending on the context, although obviously some American speakers dislike the “in a short time from now” usage. However I think “instantaneously” has only one meaning in both British English and American English; it means “for an instant”, but never “in an instant from now”.
In a hundred years, “momentarily” will be synonymous with “shortly” in exactly the same way “nauseous” is now synonymous with “nauseated,” and nobody will think twice about it.
“Penultimate” will be synonymous with “ultimate.”
“Orientate” will not be regarded as ignorant usage.
And so on. Language evolves, whether we like it or not. What we call “correct grammar” simply refers to how the majority of the population spoke the language yesterday.
“Orientate,” incidentally, is a word that has a much worse reputation with the general public than it does with language gurus. It’s accepted by virtually all dictionaries, for example. This includes the (original) Oxford English Dictionary, which traces its usage back 150 years.
It’s hard to get too worked up about the drift of “momentarily,” since there’s a plethora of other words and phrases that do the same work as the original meaning of “momentarily.”