The term pro forma (Latin for "as a matter of form" or "for the sake of form") is most often used to describe a practice or document that is provided as a courtesy or satisfies minimum requirements, conforms to a norm or doctrine, tends to be performed perfunctorily or is considered a formality.
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George Hudson, known as the Railway King, was for long a successful businessman who acquired personal control of a wide network of railways. His methods were aggressive and brutal, and were eventually exposed as shady and worse, leading to his sudden downfall in 1849. However, he managed to take a lease of the Newcastle and Carlisle Railway from 1 August 1848 and of the Maryport and Carlisle Railway from 1 October 1848.For the sake of form, Hudson arranged the leases through the York Newcastle and Berwick Railway.
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The car deck was narrowed for the sake of form, sacrificing lane width. That led to a 40% drop in the number of vehicles that could be carried as American cars became wider in the postwar years, with a corresponding drop in economic efficiency, while making it difficult for passengers to squeeze between cars on their way to embarking and disembarking from the ferry. With the coming of the more efficient Evergreen State class boats in the mid-1950s, Kalakala became obsolete. The enclosed bow design did, however, make her suitable for open water routes such as the Port Angeles - Victoria run, where she served from 1955 to 1959.
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When the new Prime Minister Tony Blair proposed the removal of the hereditary element in the House of Lords, Lord Cranborne negotiated a pact with the Labour government to retain a small number (later set at ninety-two) of hereditary peers for the interim period. For the sake of form this amendment was formally proposed by Lord Weatherill, Convenor of the Cross-Bench Peers. However, Lord Cranborne gave his party's approval without consulting the party leader, William Hague, who knew nothing and was embarrassed when Blair told him of it in the House of Commons. Hague then sacked Lord Cranborne, who accepted his error, saying that he had "rushed in, like an ill-trained spaniel".
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The democratic character of the assembly at Basel was a result of both its composition and its organization. Doctors of theology, masters and representatives of chapters, monks and clerks of inferior orders constantly outnumbered the prelates in it, and the influence of the superior clergy had less weight because instead of being separated into "nations", as at Constance, the fathers divided themselves according to their tastes or aptitudes into four large committees or "deputations" (deputationes). One was concerned with questions of faith (fidei), another with negotiations for peace (pacis), the third with reform (reformatorii), and the fourth with what they called "common concerns" (pro communibus). Every decision made by three "deputations" (the lower clergy formed the majority in each) received ratification for the sake of form in general congregation and, if necessary led to decrees promulgated in session.
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Wakoski then turned her attack against the younger poets, whom she called, "really the spokesmen for the new conservatism," which she called an unfortunate continuation of the legacies of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, T.S. Eliot, and Robert Frost. Robert McPhillips (2006), The New Formalism: A Critical Introduction, pages 3-4. Wakoski further called these younger poets, "a new kind of 'il-literati' espousing tradition. They are the ones who don't have a classical education, who don't read Latin and Greek poetry, who don't really know much about traditional metrical verse and who undoubtedly don't have the celestial ears of an Auden or a Wilbur, and they are the ones who preach metrics in old-fashioned ways, often being interested in form, whatever that is, for the sake of form." Robert McPhillips (2006), The New Formalism: A Critical Introduction, page 4.
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Other architects, such as Peter Eisenman of the New York Five, advocated the pursuit of form for the sake of form and drew on semiotics theory for support. "High Tech" architecture moved forward as Buckminster Fuller continued his experiments in geodesic domes, while the Georges Pompidou Center, designed by Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers, which opened in 1977, was a prominent example. As the decade drew to a close, Frank Gehry broke out in new direction with his own house in Santa Monica, a highly complex structure, half excavated out of an existing bungalow and half cheaply built construction using materials such as chicken wire fencing. Terracotta Army figures, dating from 210 BC, were discovered in 1974 by some local farmers in Lintong District, Xi'an, Shaanxi Province, China, near the Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor (Chinese: 秦始皇陵; pinyin: Qín Shǐhuáng Ling).
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