"She was exhausted from a day of playing soccer"
Can someone help me understand the use of" a day"? Does it mean whole day or something else?
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2 Answers
A 'day of' something is a day which was wholly or mainly occupied with something. A day of hard work. A day of relaxation. A day of arguments. A day of washing clothes.
answered Apr 25, 2018 at 15:54
The phrase is subjective for most people. It could mean that most of the waking hours of that day were spent doing X, but it could just as easily mean only a few hours.
I detest shopping and being in large crowds. If I have to do it for 2 hours, I'm going home afterward, spend the rest of my day avoiding other people, and if asked I'll probably say, "I spent the day shopping."
Because for me, the act was so emotionally and mentally draining I had to spend the rest of my day recuperating from it. If you hear someone make the statement, you could ask a follow up question, such as, "Really? The WHOLE day?"
And you're likely to find that people will give you a wide range of answers:
"Oh, not really the WHOLE day, but it was the only significant thing we did. Maybe it took up most of the morning."
"Yeah, man. The WHOLE day! We worked pretty much from sun up to sun down."
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2+1 it doesn't really matter how long was spent doing the activity - if doing it/the preparation of it were the major focus of what happened that day.– user68033Commented Apr 25, 2018 at 16:09
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Indeed. Time is subjective for people anyway, and rarely to people actually log the time they spend on a specific activities. Commented Apr 25, 2018 at 16:12
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1@user9570789 - Spot on about time being subjective in language. If I said, "I spent two days writing that program," that could mean anything from 40+ hours of furious work with very little sleep, to 15 or 16 hours over the course of two workdays, or several short burst of time over the course of two days, adding up to a few hours total. It all depends on context and intent.– J.R. ♦Commented Apr 25, 2018 at 22:06