BENEFITED FROM

At a recent City Council meeting, one of the members, during a reading of a Committee Report, used the phrase "benefited from" 4 different times, and "noted" 3 times. I'm glad he could, on behalf of all the committee members, state that they had "benefited from" a subject, but I think a more appropriate phrase would have been that all the committee members "heard about" the topics. (see definition of "benefited")

At several meetings, another Council member, during his readings of Committee Reports, used the terms Mr. and Mrs. to name each Committee member. I wonder why he thinks it's important to use gender. He is a very slow-speaking individual; I timed his recitation at the last meeting and he could have saved 30 seconds by just listing the names and not using Mr. and Mrs. (No, I don't have anything better to do than time him) Les said, "Maybe he thinks it's respectful; he's probably old-fashioned." I said, "I think he's younger than I."

I have noticed that the Chairperson has commented several times that he likes to get us "out of" the meetings in a timely manner; thus, that would be saving thirty seconds!

From the OED:

benefited
verb
"receive an advantage; profit; gain"