Haha, protects against jazz fans too. 
Not at all obvious, oh no
That the opposite of immediately is mediately.
All taxes, and the revenue which is founded upon them, all salaries, pensions and annuities of every kind … are paid either immediately or mediately from the wages of labour, the profits of stock, or the rent of land.
(Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations, Book1 Chapter 6).
VB
I thought ‘mediately’ was the adverb of ‘mediate’
So it could read that ‘…are paid either immediately’ or 'negotiated ’ from the wages of labour, the profits of stock etc
I happen to own a copy of Johnson’s dictionary which is near contemporary with Wealth of Nations and I’ve just looked up mediately. The definition there is
By a secondary cause; in such a manner that something acts between the first cause and the last effect.
The descent is indeed from mediate but he doesn’t specify whether that’s the verb, which meant then pretty much what it means now, or the adjective, which meant “interposed; intervening or middle; between two extremes”. The adjective actually looks like a better fit to the adverb, in which case Adam Smith might well have been using ‘immediately’ in a different way from the way it’s almost always used now (i.e. with respect to time, not process). If that’s the case then immediately and mediately in the Wealth of Nations quote would still be opposites.
VB
I think it refers to whether the payment is direct or indirect, not with or without delay
That was my reading of it
So do I now.
Then again, Johnson might have pointed out that Adam Smith was a Scot …
VB
And now the difference between ‘flammable’ and ‘inflammable’ 
For the same reason there are cunts and Cunts.
And Kuntz…
Many years ago I worked in the Fire Protection industry and I got confused by definitions. There are flameproof enclosures and there are explosion proof enclosures.
They are one and the same thing built to the same standards and the only thing that divides them is the Atlantic. But working in the oil and gas industry in the 80s there was mixture of suppliers from both Europe and the US and terminology became very confusing
In the case of The Wealth of Nations it means both actually 
. In Adam Smith’s day an intermediated payment was an indirect payment which necessarily implied delay. At that time delay was seen by some as a good thing. The Austrian School of Economists, who aren’t quite contemporary with Smith, had no real concept of capital (other than the stored surplus from labour) and so argued that the more ‘roundabout’ or indirect a production process, the more valuable it was.
Probably very old news to everyone else, but it must have passed me by: Norah Jones’ dad is Ravi Shankar.
I did not know that - am a bit surprised
Was on a caption on Easy Listening at The BBC on BBC4 a minute ago.
I like a bit of easy listening.