I’ve just come across the following sentence and I wonder if ‘diligent’ is used correctly here:
So just be diligent of your thoughts throughout the day.
Can you be dilligent of something? I think you can be aware of something or conscious about something.
Somehow I can’t see how you can be diligent of your thoughts, can you?[YSaerTTEW443543]
TOEIC listening, photographs: A woman with two dogs[YSaerTTEW443543]
Hi Torsten
That does sound strange.
The prepostion in can be used: “be diligent in something”
The BNC has only three results for “diligent of” but even these few are not the same sort of usage as in your sentence:
Rooker’s survey shows that even the most diligent of officers meet with obstruction.
He will be aware that only the most diligent of hon. Members and outside organisations used to go to the Table Office or the Library to get those replies.
It is uncharacteristically diligent of a minister to seek precisely to understand what money spent will accomplish.
Amy
Hi Torsten,
It’s interesting the point you have drawn attention to. This of construction to me has associations with:
Sound of mind - balanced with regard to the way you think
Careful of choice - cautious in the way you choose
Thoughtful of purpose - thinking in the way you act
Sober of judgement - clear - in the way you judge
Fleet of foot - fast in the way you run
The sense of of here means with regard to/pertaining to.
To my mind it’s used in a semi legal almost religious type of language.
Alan