Timeline for What does "scrap" mean in "“father had taught them to do: drive semis, weld, scrap.” - book “Educated” by Tara Westover?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
10 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dec 6, 2020 at 15:27 | comment | added | J.Hirsch | Agreed- in this context, it means 'fight'. Fisticuffs ought to have been used too elsewhere in the text. | |
| Dec 6, 2020 at 15:25 | comment | added | David Siegel | @Mazura In the quoted text, "drive" is a verb, and so is "weld", and therefore "scap" should be used as a verb here also.Consider the following parallel example: "There are three sorts of things that people do: work, eat, and sleep". "Things that people do" introduces a list of verbs, and so it is in the quote. | |
| Dec 6, 2020 at 11:14 | comment | added | Tim | @Mazura - that translation doesn't work too well. 'Do scrap' is o.k., but 'do drive semis, do weld'? | |
| Dec 6, 2020 at 2:18 | comment | added | Mazura | In Chicago, you're lucky if it's still in the alley half an hour later. - This is correct, but wrong. Without drive semis and weld, your father having taught you how to scrap... that would be how to fight, +1... (except it's prefaced by do... do scrap, and it's not using the verb, it's the noun: "discarded metal for reprocessing"... 'their father taught them how to do discarded metal for reprocessing'.) | |
| Dec 5, 2020 at 17:56 | comment | added | David Siegel | @Z4-tier In my area the county runs a recycling center that accepts such things, and will schedule curbside pickups on request. If a contractor installs a new water heater, s/he is required to remove the old one and deliver it to the recycling center. This is probably not the case everywhere. | |
| Dec 5, 2020 at 17:52 | comment | added | Z4-tier | Wish I still had a scrapper in my neighborhood. Not so much for the fisticuffs (he was a wild drunk), but now I need to figure out what to do with this old water heater. | |
| Dec 5, 2020 at 15:36 | comment | added | David Siegel | Given the added context now linked in another answer, this is almost surely incorrect, and "scrap" is being used to mean "the process of finding and selling scrap metal". That is a non-0standard verbing of a noun, but English does that. I am going to leave the answer up because it shows the way plausible reasoning without context can work, and because the alternate4 meanign of "scrap" as "fight" should be known to larners. | |
| Dec 5, 2020 at 9:27 | comment | added | T.J. Crowder | @Obie2.0 - Collecting and selling scrap metal in general, yeah, not just cars. Washers, dryers, old gates, wheelbarrows, ... | |
| Dec 5, 2020 at 3:51 | comment | added | Obie 2.0 | Out of context, that would be a plausible guess. In context, it is almost certainly something that fits in the same category as truck driving and welding. Scrapping motor vehicles fits the description. | |
| Dec 4, 2020 at 17:14 | history | answered | David Siegel | CC BY-SA 4.0 |