The phrase "about what once" is not correct and does not convey a clear meaning in written English.
It may be intended to refer to a past situation or event, but it lacks context to be effectively used.
Example: "We often reminisce about what once was a vibrant community."
Alternatives: "regarding what used to be" or "concerning what was previously".
The result is that kids can become fixated on digital devices, cease to care about what once mattered to them most, and yet have no insight regarding their problems.
There are no support groups or internet forums dedicated to them, and just as the prodigies I spoke to all seem to look back on their childhoods with boundless enthusiasm, if you discover an ex-genius now selling home insurance over the phone, it's unlikely they'll be as keen to chat about what once was.
With a little political backbone, the crisis of the single currency can bring about what some once hoped for from a common European foreign policy, namely promoting a cross-border awareness of a shared European destiny.
And there is concern, too, about whether what once were cornerstone American goals in Afghanistan — establishing reliable security forces, hobbling the insurgency, curbing endemic corruption, securing enduring rights for women and minorities — are now unrealistic given the looming deadline.
Although this progress has generated considerable enthusiasm about treating what once was thought to be a totally incurable condition, there are many issues to be considered relative to treatment safety and efficacy.
And in today's atmosphere of climbing energy costs and concerns about global warming, what once was obstacle is now amenity.
Write a brief letter to no one, about what you once thought the book might mean.
No one can ever be confident about what happens once voters enter the polling booth.
Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie (1981) Launched a whole new way of writing about what was once empire.
Let go of the past and thinking about what you once had and live in the present instead," she says.
But of course Balanchine was talking about what happens once the curtain goes up.
