New answers tagged sentence-meaning
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The word 'coolth' has been in use since the 1500s, meaning, essentially, the opposite of 'warmth', but, since the 1960s, has had a humorous, informal meaning of 'the quality of being relaxed, assured, or sophisticated in demeanour or style', that is, of being 'cool' in the 'hip' sense. The sentence is saying that the film (or rather, its maker) has mistaken ...
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This usage of too is an example of understatement. It occurs only with verbs in the negative.
My mother wasn't too pleased about the mess in the kitchen.
Variants with the same meaning are to be "none too pleased" and not to be "any too pleased."
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"Too" in this sentence is being used as "very". This is one of the meanings that "too" can have in a sentence, functioning as an adverb. In this sentence, it is clear that the subject of the sentence is not very appreciative of the car - the sentence is also correct without "too", but a little less idiomatic.
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Philosopher Emanuel Swedenborg was much concerned with identifying "correspondences" (parallels) across different areas (religion, science, sociology,...) that might allow principles established in one field of human endeavor / thought to be usefully employed to gain a better understanding of other areas.
The last sentence means Someone like Swedenborg (...
answered Jan 16 at 16:42
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1
If you would like to stick as closely to your proposed slogan as possible, I would suggest altering it slightly to
Makes a difference
This links nicely to your second bullet point in that it is clear that wearing it will have a positive effect on the consumer.
Your current phrasing is more like a command to someone else that they should make 'it' ...
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Their special work in this case, means the "North American aborigines" appearing in spirit form.
Nature of an expiation and atonement means that this is payment for something they've done.
The author contends that these spirits have told him that the reason they manifest in spirit form in the presence of a medium is to atone for something. The author ...
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As usual with question of this sort, the answer is 100% to do with the (unpredictable) properties of the particular word that governs the clause.
It happens that unaccusative verb prove (meaning turn out, be found to be) takes:
an adjectival complement, eg The mold on the plants proved benign.
a to-infinitve clause, eg The mold on the plants proved to ...
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As the comment by Chris Mack says, the detailed meaning of this very short sentence depends on context, especially what the pronoun "this" refers to. The definition of what "this" refers to may very well be sufficient to determine whether a single report or multiple reports are required.
The conditions of my release require me to submit my expected ...
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The quotation is from History of Spiritualism by Arthur Conan Doyle, vol 1, page 28, where he is writing about Edward Irving. (Text at archive.org)
A few sentences before your quotation, Doyle says:
Here, in Gray's Inn
Road, Irving rallied the faithful. It cannot be denied that the
Church, as he organized it, with its angel, its elders, its ...
1
The girl's eyes were wild with fear.
The girl is experiencing fear, and this has altered the appearance/movements of her eyes.
We may surmise that the word "wild" means she appears less civilised and more primitive or animal-like - she is focused purely on survival, and is more in touch with or inclined to follow basic instincts than higher cognition. When ...
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It's saying that the symbolism of astrology, so for instance constellation of Taurus as a bull. Was always identified as a bull, irregardless of what culture saw it.
So he's saying that aztecs, vikings, africans etc. all saw the constellations, and used the same symbols for them. So even if he doesn't speak their language, he can "read" the symbols, because ...
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You can get rid of the "if" (and I'd also use a hyphen, as there are two clearly separate, yet related statements) (and I'd also add the word "really", for emphasis).
I wish I could get my teachers to read that article - that would be really worthwhile.
You could also say:
It would be really worthwhile if I could get my teachers to read that article.
...
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"Right" in this context would mean "as I planned/wanted it to", which they are deeming to be "correct" or, as they say, "right".
So the person is saying that nothing went as they planned it or as they wanted it to.
In some contexts it will mean that they planned a series of happenings, and nothing happened as planned. In other contexts it would mean that a ...
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There are a myriad of ways you can think of formulating a sentence. But let me make your first sentence grammatical and succinct.
If only I could get my teachers to read that article; it'd be worthwhile.
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Or does it mean those people feel inclined to justify that the step he took is in fact proper?
Yes, indeed.
I would read the sentence to mean that, because of some context provided by other sentences, we would tend to feel that the step he took was proper, correct, moral, and not in breach of social norms, and that this step may have seemed improper ...
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First, a sentence beginning with a 'to' is a subordinate clause. So, there has to be a main clause. In this case, it's only in the speaker's head. Unfortunately... because it's important for understanding the intention of the subordinate clause. But we can assume that he's not very happy to face a game-over situation. No matter if the player identifies ...
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It means "You would be".
It implies, though doesn't state (as it was likely already stated), some condition that would need to be met, i.e. "You'd be really cool if...", e.g.:
You'd be really cool if you wore that shirt.
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The "we" in this text is referring to the author and readers of the text. John is not counted as being among them.
In a bit more detail, these statements are talking about logical constructs. In essence, if "the morning star" is A, "the evening star" is B, and "Venus" is C, then it asserts that A = B, and then says that if A=C, then B=C as well. However, if ...
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A standard turn of phrase (idiomatic usage) for the context here is...
With apologies to Mirza Ghalib...
(Your poetic efforts, which you admit are feeble compared to one of the acknowledged "poetic greats")
This is a common self-deprecating way of admitting that you know your "poetry" isn't particularly good by comparison - but at least you're trying ...
answered Jan 5 at 15:37
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A "due date" is the date when something is due. The date that something must be finished, or is expected to finish.
The report is due on the 20th January. = The project's due date is the the 20th of January.
The use of "do date" is a joke. This is not an idiomatic expression. It would mean "the date that I do something". So the joke is "if it isn't ...
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"You can't put nothing past nobody" is more of an idiomatic thing, rather than a strictly grammatically correct thing. It's sort of like "We don't need no education" to mean "We don't need any education".
That being said, "You can't put nothing past nobody" is essentially equivalent to "You can't put anything past anybody".
According to Collins
If ...
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The expression assuming all goes as it should is equivalent to if everything proceeds as intended or if everything works out as planned.
Depending on how it is used, all can act as any of several parts of speech. In this case, all is acting as a singular noun and takes a singular verb.
If all were used to refer to a number of items or individuals, it ...
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"That was how it was with her" has to do with her personality, how she reacts in a particular situation and I suspect that situation occurred shortly before.
"What did I even do" means you did something that she is angry or sad about, but you do not understand why or you don't think what you did is bad.
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That is a very long sentence. It contains a list of items, but it isn't punctuated very well.
It essentially says:
Launching the legalization of cannabis in a way that includes communities left behind for far too long:
creates good jobs
expunges thousands of records for those who have lost out on opportunities
ends prohibition.
"...
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When a sentence ends with a comma and 'is he?', 'is she?', 'are they?', 'is it?', or any variant thereof, it is an idiom meaning that the speaker believes the subject of the sentence is described by the first part of the sentence. In this case, the speaker is guessing that the young woman is a 'home help', or maid.
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I agree with @FumbleFingers definition of 'personal nobility of spirit' as nobleness/virtue and that using this text to learn English is probably not particularly relevant. However, I differ in regards to the definition of philosophy.
As I read it, the Author has asserted the following;
that a person who has worked through and transcended all orthodox ...
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It is not a complete sentence because it demands further information: What do these games do or what did somebody do to them? The verb has does not create a complete sentence because it is in a subordinate clause introduced by that.
It is a noun phrase or nominal, since it is a combination of words that expresses an idea that might be the subject or object ...
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The phrase "games that have us like" makes sense, but it's an incomplete thought.
The meaning of the phrase "games that have us like, 'whoa'" (or however you might spell that) is games that when played, or watched, made us react with astonishment.
More generally, the phrase "[noun/pronoun] has us like [reaction]" means the noun/pronoun caused us to feel ...
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The cited text is actually syntactically invalid. It's a little tricky to explain exactly why, but I'll try to do it using some examples of similar constructions...
1: There is more than a litre of water in this jug
(The amount of water in this jug exceeds one litre)
2: There is more sea water than [there is] fresh water
(The amount of sea water ...
answered Jan 1 at 15:32
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2
Using "if" as a conjunction between two adjectives means "even though":
The movie was an entertaining if predictable ending to the series.
In your case, it is using the metaphor "the bosom of the church" (the church seen as a place of security) but it is playing with this metaphor by describing the bosom of the Scottish church as "flattish" (as a thin ...
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The phrase, “his own hereditary scheme of religion,” speaks to Baxter's own personal view of the religion. He has been influenced by his own family's personal views. For example, his father may have really liked a certain story of the holy book. This would have caused him to teach Baxter more about that one part. So each person in his family has ...
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These all depend on the context of course, but I would consider five of the six uses completely standard. I don't think the use of "I feel" or "I'm (I am)" makes any meaningful difference.
The only one I wouldn't consider standard, though in a rather narrow set of circumstances not necessarily incorrect, would be the use of I'm cold = I have a low libido.
...
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There is nothing ungrammatical or unidiomatic about your proposed sentence.
But if you feel that the sentence is verbose and thus awkward, I agree.
Then the video ends with another text, followed by a call to sign a petition.
I see no reason to say that the call is addressed to those viewing the video: to whom else could it possibly be addressed? If, ...
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<tl;dr> It's something else, namely a contributor to Wikipedia writing himself into a corner and then trying to use a punctuation mark to free himself. The basic confusion is the writer's.
The participial clause is a nominative absolute. Nominative for any subject of the participle that might be present, and absolute meaning independent of the ...
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A quick way to understand it would be to try and read it without the parenthetical statements. After all, parenthesis are supposed to contain only supplementary information or clarifications. You ought to be able to read and understand a paragraph without them.
Here's the parenthetical statement enclosed in brackets:
That reasoning might make sense if ...
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At one level both are rather irritating questions! Obviously I need the lantern because I'm going somewhere that needs a light! Further, if I've got a power outage then my house is dark and, if he's lending me his lantern, his house isn't, so it's pretty clear why I need the lantern!
At another level, both are just small talk, an invitation to elaborate ...
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Context is everything. Two days ago, when you asked about this paragraph on ELU, you cited its source there -- A History of Spiritualism (1926) by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. It may help to know that when it came to spiritualism, psychic phenomena, and other supposed aspects of the supernatural, ACD was a credulous dupe. The first line of your excerpt reads, "...
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The answer to your question is in.
Typically at would precede the name of the stadium, as in:
Side A are playing (against) side B at the New Stadium in today's game/match.
In this context the preposition against is optional and is frequently omitted.
https://forum.wordreference.com/threads/play-someone-instead-of-play-with-someone-or-play-against-...
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'How are they different?' asks for examples where (for instance 'American English' and 'UK English') differ. It is requesting a list of differences. The language enquiry may well spring from a real interest in linguistic peculiarities.
............
'How different are they?' is asking about the degree to which (for instance 'American English' and 'UK ...
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How are they different? One is red and one is blue. One is a square and the other is a triangle.
To answer this question, you explain the differences. A counterpart question might be: "... and how are they alike?"
How different are they? They are indistinguishable.
How different are they? They are almost the same.
How different are they?...
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Well, the literal meaning of "He was tiny in death" is that Colin Creevey looked more tiny when dead than when he was alive. Colin was much shorter than Harry. When Colin was alive, he was always cheerful; he was filled with excitement and vigor. But his dead body had none of it. It was still and silent. The body appeared tiny.
The next sentence in the ...
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"In death", as used here, means "being in the state of being dead" (as opposed to alive).
Essentially, the dead character (Colin Creevey) seems smaller to the viewpoint character (Harry Potter), when the former is dead than when the viewpoint character saw him alive.
With some context from the novel in question:
1) The dead character was very active and ...
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Both are okay; it's just a style a particular register takes.
In the UK, it's common to say:
take: wear or require (a particular size of garment or type of complementary article): he takes size 5 boots.
Nevertheless, I've heard this common:
What's her shoe size?
Or...
What shoe size does she have? (InE)
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no words occurred to him that did not seem hollow and insincere
The "that" part of the clause is indeed modifying the previous portion, imposing a limitation on it. Consider what the sentence would mean without it:
no words occurred to him
This would simply mean that Harry couldn't think of anything at all to say. But that is not what the author wishes ...
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