Timeline for "under the sunlight" VS "in the sunlight" VS "under sunlight" VS "in sunlight"?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
12 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| May 15, 2020 at 22:31 | vote | accept | Cardinal | ||
| May 15, 2020 at 21:40 | comment | added | Jeff Morrow | Sunlight is a perfectly idiomatic word. It is just that among non-technical sorts, it refers to visible light rather than electromagnetic radiation. | |
| May 15, 2020 at 21:34 | comment | added | Cardinal | Yes, you are right. Although I wrote it that way, I didn't ask for the technical vocabulary. It was just the reason why used the word sunlight. I didn't even know that it is not an idiomatic thing in everyday English. I was more confused about the preposition and the articles. That's why asked that question on Ell. Thanks, for the comments and the answer anyways. | |
| May 15, 2020 at 21:26 | comment | added | Jeff Morrow | As always, context matters. Among physicists or in a class on physics, people would probably use terms like electromagnetic energy (I don't hang out with physicists so I am guessing). In all technical fields, there is a technical vocabulary that includes terms from everyday language but used with a specialized meaning. For example, in American law, the word "right" technically means "something that a court will recognize as valid" without reference to popular conceptions of what is morally proper. ELL is not necessarily the best resource for answering questions about technical vocabulary. | |
| May 15, 2020 at 19:36 | comment | added | Cardinal | I see what you are saying, I just explained what was motivation behind what I wrote or perhaps what drove me to use the word "sunlight". Suppose that a lecturer intentionally words the sentence with "light" for example in a physics class to sort of evoke curiosity? | |
| May 15, 2020 at 19:20 | history | edited | Jeff Morrow | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| May 15, 2020 at 19:17 | comment | added | Jeff Morrow | @Cardinal I am not trying to argue physics. Language derives from a time when modern physics was unknown and is used by people entirely innocent of even pre-relativistic physics. In the common tongue, "heat" and "light" are conceived as related but distinct things, e.g., "an explanation that gives more heat than light." To the average speaker, you do not dry clothes outside on even a sunny February day because it is not warm enough to be effective. Heat rather than light is the criterion. The formal understanding of the precession of the equinoxes does not affect English. | |
| May 15, 2020 at 18:35 | comment | added | Cardinal | I see, but as I mentioned in comment below my question to @WeatherVane comment, I wrote it that way because I believe the heat is transferred by the light wave (particle). The difference between May and February, I believe, is the fact that the angel of sunlight rays by which they reach the earth is different in May and February. | |
| May 15, 2020 at 18:10 | history | edited | Jeff Morrow | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| May 15, 2020 at 18:08 | comment | added | Jeff Morrow | I am not sure it is best described as a metaphor. I think "in the sun" in this context is better thought of as an ellipsis for "in the heat of the sun." This goes back to my point that it is not light that is really relevant. A February morning may be as gaily bright as one in May, but laying your shirt on the snow to dry it is probably not the recommended procedure. | |
| May 15, 2020 at 17:54 | comment | added | Cardinal | Thanks for your answer, it is interesting that you would say "in the sun", It didn't come to my mind that you would use this sort of metaphors, I mean equating the sun with the sunlight. | |
| May 15, 2020 at 17:38 | history | answered | Jeff Morrow | CC BY-SA 4.0 |