New answers tagged sentence-meaning
1
vote
Accepted
Do these sentences have the same meaning: "Such a pity your father can't be here." VS "I wish your father was here."
Obviously they both express a similar idea, but they don't literally 'mean the same'.
I wish your father was here is a statement of the speaker's personal feelings.
[It's] such a pity that your father ...
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4
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It was decided that the old building (should/would) be pulled down
They are all correct grammar.
Uses a subjunctive clause. This is restricted to formal English in modern styles (and learners should usually avoid it, except in fixed phrases)
Uses "should"...
- 203k
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Difference between "the number of people you would have thought" OR "the number of people you would think"?
what I think is that:
you would have thought➡️the thing you once thought of, and it is not what you are thinking of now.( you changed your mind)
you would think➡️what you are thinking of at the very ...
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3
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What's the meaning of this sentence:
Yes, you have interpreted the sentence correctly.
The original sentence could also be shortened to
I knew, in a way better than I could say/describe, that it was different.
- 7,689
2
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Accepted
Is my understanding of back-to-back here correct?
"Back to back" means that two things are right next to each other. It does not mean that one is a mirror image of the other. I see how you might guess that by looking at the words, but no, ...
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"I'm starving to death" or "I'm hungry to death" can mean "I'm very hungry"?
starve to death
is an idiom
to die from lack of food
The famine caused many to starve to death.
hungry to death is uncommon. "BE + hungry to death" is much less common than "BE + ...
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35
votes
Accepted
How to understand "Beat the jolt, check the volt"?
A "jolt" is sudden movement, as you might get from an electric shock. To "beat" something means to defeat it.
You can "beat" an electric shock by checking if a wire is ...
- 203k
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Is assurity a proper English word
The word normally used is 'surety', which is probably where it evolved from in the Caribbean, (from 'a surety'). But used to mean 'being sure' is an archaic or obsolete use of the term now; though it ...
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2
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Accepted
Do Americans use the expression "it looks common"? If so, what does it mean?
In the US one does hear things like Don’t act that way, it’s so common, but—dare I say it?—not all that commonly. The disparaging sense of common is a good deal less frequent over here than the other ...
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