what the idiom actually means—something like “(just) in accordance with what’s being said; as an aside”
But that isn’t at all what the idiom actually means. Well, maybe there’s been a shift I’m unaware of and that’s what many people mean by it now, and on any particular occasion it may be used or abused in any way its user fancies. But what the Latin means, and what the phrase has always meant in English use when I’ve seen it, is more like “as such” or “in itself”. It doesn’t have anything to do with asides, and while I can see the connection between “just in accordance with what’s being said” and the actual meaning it would never occur to me to express it in such a way.
(I’d thought komponisto’s remark was referring back to a recent instance of “per say” in one of your comments, but I can’t find it now. Maybe it was someone else, or maybe you corrected it, or maybe I just imagined the whole thing. The comment I thought it was in has been edited but now doesn’t contain either “per say” or “per se”.)
But that isn’t at all what the idiom actually means. Well, maybe there’s been a shift I’m unaware of and that’s what many people mean by it now, and on any particular occasion it may be used or abused in any way its user fancies. But what the Latin means, and what the phrase has always meant in English use when I’ve seen it, is more like “as such” or “in itself”. It doesn’t have anything to do with asides, and while I can see the connection between “just in accordance with what’s being said” and the actual meaning it would never occur to me to express it in such a way.
(I’d thought komponisto’s remark was referring back to a recent instance of “per say” in one of your comments, but I can’t find it now. Maybe it was someone else, or maybe you corrected it, or maybe I just imagined the whole thing. The comment I thought it was in has been edited but now doesn’t contain either “per say” or “per se”.)