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Example (from the movie Willow Creek):

— Tell me a little bit about, um, the Patterson-Gimlin site and just how to get there, man.
— Oh, well, um, you can take this road, I can show on the map, and you go down that road. It's probably easier that way.
— That would be great.
— You come down to the bottom and there's an old camp site there, you know, and, uh, when you're at that camp site, you basically just take a right. You have to bushwhack and go through the forest.
— My girlfriend is OK with that.
— But it's not... you won't get lost. Just follow the sound of the creek on your left and look at the hill on your right. You just keep going straight between those until you come to a big gulch and you'll see it all blasted out with rocks and log debris and, uh, that's the bottom of the film site area.
— Wow.

I know it probably means covered with a lot of rocks in an unorganized way but what does it mean exactly to be blasted out with something?

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    Source? Is this a literary usage?
    – user3169
    Dec 20, 2014 at 18:47

1 Answer 1

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This sentence is a little confusing. The speaker is using very informal language, and does not seem very organized - poor English seems to be part of his character! It would make more sense if we split up the ideas:

You just keep going straight between [the hill and the creek] until you come to a big gulch.

[You will] see the gulch is all blasted out.

[The gulch is filled] with rocks and log debris.

That's the bottom of the film site area.

That's a lot of information for one sentence!

Most of this seems pretty clear, but "all blasted out" is still a little strange. To blast means to explode, to damage in an explosion, or to hit with explosive power. For instance, a water pistol would "squirt" someone, while a fire hose would "blast" them off their feet.

"Blasted out" means that material was removed (taken out) by the force.

Adding "all" here is an informal way to say that it is totally or entirely affected - for instance, a water pistol would get someone "wet", but the fire hose would get them "all wet". For the area to be "all blasted out", it has been widely damaged.

Combined with the description of "rocks and log debris", it sounds like the site was hit by an explosion or disaster such as a flood or a volcanic eruption, which devastated the location and spread debris around.

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