I have a water filter in my office. It is broken. I wrote a reminder telling the staff.
The word I would like to highlight is "as from" or "from."
Water filter can only be used as from 1st March, 2016.
Is it grammatically correct?
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closed as off-topic by user140086, Edwin Ashworth, jimm101, curiousdannii, ab2 Mar 2 '16 at 21:10
This question appears to be off-topic. The users who voted to close gave this specific reason:
- "Please include the research you've done, or consider if your question suits our English Language Learners site better. Questions that can be answered using commonly-available references are off-topic." – Community, Edwin Ashworth, curiousdannii, ab2
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Just use from. Or effective – user140086 Feb 29 '16 at 7:38
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Two other options (in addition to "as from today," "from today," and "effective today") are "beginning today" and "as of today." These may be more U.S.-idiomatic forms than British-idiomatic forms (the two "from" options have a British English sound to me, although "effective today" does not); but all five options are grammatically faultless, I believe. – Sven Yargs Feb 29 '16 at 8:36
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My mother used to complain endlessly about the use of "as from [a date]" to mean "from [that date]". She complained that the phrase meant "as though from [the date]" and shouldn't be used when whatever it was did start at the date. She may have been right, once; but usage certainly changed, and "as from" is a somewhat formal way of saying "from that date". – Colin Fine Feb 29 '16 at 10:47
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Water filter can only be used as from 1st March, 2016.
That is not quite correct.
If you want to say that the first day that the water filter can be used is March 1st, then you can say:
Water filter can only be used as [of] 1st March, 2016.
But typically — at least in American English — we would say:
Out of order until March 1st, 2016.
“Out of order” simply means that the device has some part that is missing or broken and it has yet to be replaced or repaired.
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I've found 3 respected dictionaries (I'll let you do your own research as to which ones) that actually license this expression; one gives 'fares on all routes will rise as from January 11' as an example. That makes 'not quite correct' incorrect, as far as I can see. – Edwin Ashworth Feb 29 '16 at 13:26
