A. She got their hair done.
I am wondering what done really mean here.
Thanks
1
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Did you look up "to do" in a dictionary? – rogermue Jul 17 '15 at 16:18
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1@rogermue - you mean like this? (Although I'm all for exhorting others to share their research, I think we should be careful making comments like that when a word has literally dozens of meanings.) – J.R.♦ Jul 17 '15 at 20:58
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It must be learnt to find one's way through long entries in dictionaries. Even if to do/to have/to get can have 20 to 30 meanings. And I don't think it is difficult to find "to do one's hair" or "hair-do". By the way, wordnik has a horrible arrangement. I would recommend Longman's DCE. They have found a way to make it easy to find something. ldoceonline.com/dictionary/do_2 - See no.8, hair, nails, make-up. - And a learner has to learn which dictionary to use. – rogermue Jul 17 '15 at 21:25
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@rogermue - I wouldn't call Wordnik's arrangement "horrible," although it does take some getting used to. It actually lists definitiions from four or five different dictionaries down the left-hand side; on the right, it lists example usages taken from recent media articles, and at the bottom, synonyms, antonyms, and sometimes even hypernyms – all quite useful for a more reasonable word than do. – J.R.♦ Jul 18 '15 at 10:14
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@J.R. Don't want to bring it up on a meta-post but I'm not getting any "moderator tools" when I go on the review queue. What can I do about this? Also is there a way of having a quiet word with a mod? – Araucaria - Not here any more. Jul 20 '15 at 21:03
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In this case, it simply means that she had her hair styled or trimmed. Basically, a trip to a hairdresser.
Likewise, a particular hairstyle, especially a complicated or distinctive one, is often referred to as "a do".
3
The construction "I got my ___ done" is a common construction with several different meanings depending upon what fills in the blank.
1) "I got my hair done", "I got my nails done", "I got my toes done": the speaker went to a professional who specializes in the cosmetics of that body part (hair, finger nail, toe nails, etc.).
2) "I got my chores done", "I got my work done", "I got my errands done": the speaker is the person who completed a task (chores, work, job, etc.), which is typically a daily task or an assigned task.
3) "I got my taxes done", "I got my books done": the speaker had a professional complete some task of theirs that is often considered a burden, usually in a business or professional setting.
As you can see, 1 and 3 are pretty similar, but are used in very different contexts and usually by very different people. See the Google n-gram results on which of these is the most common.
