89
The text has nothing to do with whether she has a spouse or boyfriend. She's referring to back to a past time when she was a youth, which is a noun meaning "a young person between adolescence and maturity."
The phrase "half woman, half girl" is a poetic way of saying that as a youth, she was not yet an adult, but not a child either. There were probably ...
32
"Half woman" and "half girl" are not idioms or anything. She's trying to evoke a more literal meaning, using this "half X, half Y" construction similarly to how you could describe a mule as "half horse, half donkey" or a mermaid as "half woman, half fish". "Half woman, half girl" is one connected statement in which the narrator is describing herself as being ...
27
It's not a bad idea, and in fact there are some real advantages to learning from the KJV specifically, but there are some pitfalls too.
First, the advantages.
Bible translators (especially in English) generally are some of the most careful formal users of the language; it is very rare to find any errors or usages that could have been considered dubious at ...
23
Literally, it is a nautical term meaning "Is the wind coming from that direction?"
The actual meaning is "Is that how things are?" with an implication of either surprise or (here) cynicism.
It uses the archaic form of question without "do" support: in modern syntax it would read "Does the wind stand in that direction?" But it also uses an archaic sense of ...
18
It's a reference to the points of the compass which name the direction from which the wind comes.
The four cardinal directions (N,S,E,W) and the four ordinal directions which bisect them (NE,SE,SW,NW) are the eight principal winds; the half-winds are the eight directions which bisect the principal winds; and the quarter-winds are the sixteen directions ...
12
Briefly, "half girl, half woman" practically equals Britney Spears' "not a girl, not yet a woman" which means that she has almost grown out of her childhood and she is no more a girl, but she hasn't yet become a woman. She is somewhere between still having something from a girl and already having something from a woman. Both the former and the latter can be ...
11
There is a difference between telling a story and explaining what happens in a story. They are different. When we tell a story, we often use the past tense. We try to get our reader or listener involved in the story. We want them to forget where they are and that they are reading (or listening). We want them to enter the world of the story.
When we explain ...
10
In linguistics, this sort of repetition is called reduplication, and the second half is sometimes called a reduplicant. Reduplication is the most common term, but let's explore some more specific terms that are less common.
In your example, the reduplicant is altered, incorporating a special kind of prefix, and although there is no common term for this, a ...
9
It has been a literary convention for at least four hundred years that plot summaries are cast in the present tense. I imagine that the device is intended to exhibit the action of the work as it will unfold before the reader or spectator.
This convention obtains across genres: you will find it in accounts of plays, operas, novels, histories—even the ...
8
I think stock means tree stump. I'm German and "over stock and stone" is a typical German expression (über Stock und Stein).
7
You are right it means nearly the same as:
the more grieved I am that I have spoken those mistrusting words
But saying
the more grieved I am that I should ever have spoken those mistrusting words
intensifies the feeling of grief at the mere thought of having said those words.
This use of should is called the "putative should". It does not carry ...
7
Its origin is a biblical quotation.
In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the
trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and
we shall be changed.
1 Corinthians 15:52
What’s The So Called Last Trump?
Most post- trib believers equate the Last Trump with the trumpet call
Jesus will issue to the ...
6
He says that he did, and he always does, no matter what. He's saying that he's so consistent about it, he should have a reputation for it, which no one can deny.
6
A sleeve is not only a part of a shirt / clothing, but in a more figurative sense a sheath-like object that surrounds something.
In your example, the water flows around and possibly somewhat up the ankles of the persons described, forming "water socks":
source.
6
Some dogs (sheep herders) nip at the heels of the sheep, to direct them.
For example:
http://pets.thenest.com/keep-shelties-nipping-backs-legs-6151.html
So the implication is not merely of following, but of changing the behavior of the one followed.
5
You are right. English, when referring to language, the people, or the country, would always be conventionally capitalized. The text does use conventional capitalization for the first word of sentences, the pronoun I, for names of other people and places, and so on, so the non-capitalization of English stands out as unusual.
The book is written in an ...
5
I do not think the expression implies that she is half one, half the other.
Instead it is a poetic device to describe someone at the cusp of adulthood, with the simultaneous qualities of both a woman and a girl. Someone who is physically beyond adolescence but without the wisdom and experiences that come with full adulthood. The awkward age girls, ...
4
This is a poetic figure of speech.
When leaves are blown away by wind, it is easy to imagine the wind pushing the leaves like a man pushing a cart:
The man is behind the cart when he pushes it, and the cart is before the man.
The same way, the wind is behind the leaves, pushing them, and the leaves are before the wind, being pushed.
For completeness, ...
4
Yes, it is basically the same as saying "hill after hill" or "one hill after another"; it's just a somewhat more poetic-sounding construction.
It doesn't quite work for "meadow beyond meadow" because hills are relatively well-defined things with a clear boundary between the end of one and the start of the next, so they can easily be visualized in a line, ...
4
It's bad writing.
What Cooper is trying to say is that
The deportment (behavior) of the 'highly bred' (meaning people who are raised in luxury and learn elegant behavior from their youth) is marked by 'a refined simplicity'.
Those born to a less elevated station should aim to achieve'a considerate humanity' (meaning 'consideration for others as human ...
4
This use varies in different contexts.
In ordinary discourse we have traditionally written of past works as if they were 'speaking' to us immediately, in the present; and I think this accurately expresses how most people read novels and plays and poetry. The same use is generally followed in academic studies of literature and history when citing past ...
4
If you looked to something in Hardy's day, you tended to it. He presumably cleaned/polished the brass.
4
The answers from Technik and Nathan are great covering most issues to consider, so I will not repeat what they have said.
The EasyEnglish Bible, is a translation created for people that are leaning English, it uses a very limited number of words, so someone can quickly learn enough English to understand it.
As a way of learning everyday English it is ...
4
Paraphrase:
Yes, the Queen's ministers opened her letters; but equally, she would do the same thing with their letters, at any time. So you should think of the Queen (they say she had beautiful handwriting) excusing herself thus . . .
3
Let it be {x}..... a form of exhortation, with the verb form changing from "is" to "be" accordingly.
May it be {x} ....
With "never" negating it, it would be "May it never be said...".
That's the grammar of it. The paraphrase is as modulusshift gives in his answer: no one should ever say that I do not collect the best (because I do!)
3
He wanted to have an affair with Miss Wilkinson. According to the societal customs of that age, a virtuous woman should have rebuffed a man's initial attemps at establishing physical intimacy. He undertook the siege of this "virtue" by expressing his affection to Miss Wilkinson through the meager means provided by the English language (that is, meager ...
3
The participle phrase of opening is not a temporal expression like in the beginning, which would modify the preceding clause. It acts rather as a modifier on the noun grounds and names what it is that is ‘grounded’ or based. The grounds of a legal case, for instance, is the action or omission which the plaintiff complains of, and the grounds of of a belief ...
3
The minister enters the house where someone has died as if he now owned the house, and all the mourners in it, and even the little boys there.
That is all that Dickinson shows us: the minister's demeanour. The glosses you offer are inferences, not facts in the text. Perhaps he will take control, and perhaps people will listen and follow his orders; all we ...
3
I would go through lists of award winners in young adult fiction (also called "YA fiction")[1][2]. Like a Pixar movie, a lot of good YA fiction is layered: entirely appropriate and engaging for children, but with themes, jokes, and content that adults will pick up on that makes it interesting to read at any age. The language is almost always a bit simpler ...
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