Thank goodness it’s over• “One says, e.g., ‘Thank goodness that's over’, and not onlyis this, when said, quite clear without any date appended, butit says something which it is impossible that any use of atenseless copula with a date should convey.”• “It certainly doesn’t mean the same as ‘Thank goodness thedate of the conclusion of that thing is Friday, June 15, 1954’,even if it be said then. (Nor, for that matter, does it mean,‘Thank goodness the conclusion of that thing iscontemporaneous with this utterance’. Why should anyonethank goodness for that?)”