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In someone's face roughly means in front of someone's face, but it can have an aggressive connotation:
in (one's) face
1. Physically in front of one's face.
If you stick that dead bug in my face, I'm going to come after you!
Can you believe he just slammed the door in my face like that?
(TFD)
From just tells us the person's origin, so to ...
11
What you have here, I believe, is called a Group Genitive (see Collins). See the third section for more on this.
Meaning in Context:
From Cambridge, a bloke is "a man, often one who is considered to be ordinary." This is used informally. See sheila.
In your case, Harry is saying that he saw Gaunt waving (= brandishing) the ring "in the face of a ...
7
The cause of the confusion in this sentence is that the speaker doesn't recall the name of the person he is speaking about. The person's actual name in the story is Bob Ogden. Let us therefore reconstruct the sentence with that information:
I saw him waving it in Bob's face, he nearly shoved it up his nose!
This sentence is much simpler. It simply means ...
3
The construction "in the bloke from the Ministry's face" feels awkward because the posessive is so far from the owning noun. If it were "in the face of the bloke from the Ministry" it'd be less ambiguous but it'd feel more stilted. "Waving it in the Minister's face" might be inaccurate if it's a low-level official.
For an informal, young speaker like Ron, ...
2
The answer is
He is smart for a country person
But it should be noted that this also implies that most country people are not smart, and so could be considered a fairly offensive statement.
2
Generally not -- this would suggest you were standing on the roof.
"At Heathrow Airport" or possibly "In Heathrow Airport" (if you were in a specific building) would be the usual form.
2
"In the job" is used to refer to someone being placed in a job role.
Example: "I have been in this job for 7 years".
"On the job" is used to say that someone is presently engaged on a particular piece of work or in situ on a work location. In British English, it is particularly common in building trades, where each individual piece of work is called "a job"...
2
I think the problem lies in the verb tense. If you "swam" (past tense) across the lake, you reached the other side. "Swimming" implies an action still in progress. When you put "across" in there, I believe readers would naturally assume that you did reach the other side. On the other hand, when I read your sentence as originally written, I assume that we are ...
1
The definitions overlap, but (2) the person that receives something, is the closest.
The people who receive a view of the pictures may be offended. The idiomatic way of expressing this is "X is offensive to Y" when Y is the person who receives the offensive thing X.
But "to", in this example is a functional word. It doesn't carry very much meaning, and ...
1
By has one of its common meanings here: it introduces the agent of the passive verb be expected.
1
to swim across a lake or river.
across the lake or river is merely the goal.
Yes, you reach the other side, generally, unless otherwise specified.
Obviously,if you get a cramp and have to stop, you don't reach the other side.
On the other hand, you might just float there. Or stand up if it is not deep.
Presumably, you did not drown since you are telling ...
1
The word in is used in so many ways that the Oxford Learners' Dictionary can't cover all of them.
Interested in is a standard phrase for someone who is keen to take part in an activity or to learn about it.
In is often used with a part of the body when an action is applied to it, for example 'look him in the eyes,' 'poke him in the ribs' etc. Sometimes it'...
1
The most general meaning of X on Y when talking about physical things is:
X is above Y.
X and Y are touching.
If you move Y, X moves too - X and Y may or may not be attached.
The thickness of X and Y isn't important. So, a cup can be on a table, a building can be on the ground, and you draw or write on a piece of paper.
Web technology is originally ...
1
Your examples include two different contexts.
"I have never travelled by road" uses an idiomatic way of stating your mode of travel. You can say you travelled by air, by road, by sea, or, by plane by car, by boat.
"I have never travelled on road B" is referring to your use of a particular road. "On" means atop of, which you can say about roads or the sea ...
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