Timeline for "too soon" versus "too early"
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
10 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Mar 6, 2021 at 3:00 | comment | added | Jelila | Yes, you're on the right track there, I think! (Meaning, in English, 'I completely agree with you!') Didn't know you were British! | |
| Mar 5, 2021 at 12:53 | comment | added | FumbleFingers | @Jelila: Quite. (As we Brits say when we mean Absolutely!, not when we mean [There's] A bit [of truth in what you say] :) | |
| Mar 4, 2021 at 23:59 | comment | added | Jelila | Native English speakers would likely say 'isn't it a bit early to be playing computer games?' the 'a bit' is in fact, sarcastic - especially if it's 9am and games are not allowed til 6pm. The 'a bit' is kind of humourous and actually, what it means is: 'isnt it extremely early to be playing computer games?' But we'd never say that, as it would seem rude. | |
| Mar 4, 2021 at 11:56 | history | edited | FumbleFingers | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Mar 1, 2021 at 8:09 | comment | added | Peter Cordes | @AspectofPie: Yes, I would say "too early" in your case. It would have taken me some more thinking to explain exactly why "too soon" would sound wrong, if FumbleFingers hadn't come up with this clear explanation of the subtle difference. It's one of those things that native speakers just do without having to think about why. :/ | |
| Feb 27, 2021 at 15:52 | comment | added | FumbleFingers | Yes. Most native speakers would use too early for your context, because too soon is only usually used in contexts where it's "unsuitable" to do something because of some earlier event (that happened too recently, so you should wait for more time to elapse before starting the proposed activity). There is no "earlier event" relevant to playing games during working hours. You just have to watch out for the counter-intuitive fact that too soon requires a contextually relevant earlier event, but too early normally has nothing to do with earlier events. | |
| Feb 27, 2021 at 15:41 | vote | accept | AspectofPie | ||
| Feb 27, 2021 at 15:30 | comment | added | AspectofPie | So, to be perfectly clear, in this case one should use too early, since the proposed activity is playing and the time-frame is still being work-hours? | |
| Feb 27, 2021 at 15:13 | history | edited | Rayan Khan | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Feb 27, 2021 at 15:08 | history | answered | FumbleFingers | CC BY-SA 4.0 |