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I've got the following sentence:

Have you any idea if the buses are on strike tomorrow?

I've already looked up in the Cambridge dictionary. I have no result, though. "Strike on" means "to discover something". In this case it means that bus drivers are going on strike? Is it the only one reasonable meaning for this case?

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4 Answers 4

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Answers above seem to provide a complete and reasonable answer for your question.

Anyway, I will try to go deeper:

The verb and noun Strike have two distinct meanings:

  1. Strike (verb) - to hit someone/thing violently -

I will strike him until he tells me what is wrong.

  1. Strike (verb) - to stop an activity or work due to low salary, low working conditions or any other issue that might exceed one's working capacity -

Bus drivers will strike next week


  1. Strike (noun) - the act of hitting something/someone violently -

The strikes from her husband on her were very constant

  1. Strike (noun) - the act of stopping working due to salary, working conditions or any other issue that might exceed one's working capacity -

Truck drivers were on strike due to low salary

Notice how we use Strike as a verb and noun;

as a noun, it is always used with a preposition on, when expressing the act of stopping working.

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  • +1, although the word strike actually has more than just two meanings.
    – stangdon
    Dec 1, 2017 at 18:27
  • I think you explanation is the best of all, thank you. Dec 2, 2017 at 11:38
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In the Merriam-Webster Dictionary,

"strike" means

3-a : a work stoppage by a body of workers to enforce compliance with demands made on an employer

Example of strike in a sentence :

The workers are on strike.

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It is the забастовка version

If the buses are running or not because of industrial action

Strike

noun 1.

a refusal to work organized by a body of employees as a form of protest, typically in an attempt to gain a concession or concessions from their employer.

"dockers voted for an all-out strike"

synonyms: industrial action, walkout

"staff held a 48-hour strike"

define strike

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I'll go off on a somewhat different tangent.

Have you any idea if the buses are on strike tomorrow?

The comprehension problem is that the sentence leaves out some common sense knowledge. Buses can't go on strike. The bus drivers can, or the maintenance workers can, or the cleaning crews for the buses can. So the question is asking if the buses won't be running because some humans, upon which the bus service depends, are going to be on strike.

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