Questão 2301858

Read the following excerpt and answer questions 42 and 43.

About the teaching of polywords, Lewis says,

And what about these: how many ‘words’ do you think these contain?

By the way, have you got your results yet?

We ’ve collected over £500 up to now.

Expressions such as by the way and up to now allow no variation. In some contexts, way, route and road are closely synonymous, but there is no expression * by the road/ route which approximates to by the way. Similarly, expressions such as * down to /from now are not items in the English lexicon. Clearly, items such as by the way and up to now are invariable, indivisible word-like units.

(Adaptado de Lewis, M. Implementing the Lexical Approach. 2008, p.22)

Polywords such as the ones underlined in the two sentences used by Lewis as examples are usually associated with informal English. In writing – especially academic writing – students need to know the difference between informal and formal English word choices. Which option shows correct formal equivalents for by the way and up to now respectively?