Diligent about your thoughts?

[Torsten]

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?

TOEIC listening, photographs: A woman with two dogs

[Yankee]

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
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"Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power." ~ Abraham Lincoln

[Alan]

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
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English as a Second Language
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