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English is weird
Tova:
--- Quote from: LTK on 13 Jun 2017, 14:03 ---In the sentence "They have come before you," "before" can have opposite meanings. It can mean "in front of", or "earlier". The former refers to a spatial forward direction while the latter refers to a temporal backward direction, assuming we face the future in our imagined orientation in time. Isn't that weird?
--- End quote ---
I see what you're saying, but I see "in front of" and "earlier" as essentially being synonymous in the temporal sense - that is, I see "event A occurs before event B" and "event A occurs in front of event B" as saying the same thing.
If you think of it in terms of a queue, then both terms can be used interchangeably either positionally or temporally. The same applies to "behind"/"later".
This logic also tallies with the concept that an appointment can be "pushed back" (set further in the future) or "pushed forward" (set closer to the present).
I don't think it's weird, but maybe I'm too used to it.
Akima:
For appointments etc. I would push them back, but always pull them forward.
Tova:
Yes, good point. You forced me to say it out loud to figure out what I would really say, which turns out to be "push back" and "bring forward". Similar ideas.
On an unrelated topic: the transitive verb "to ravel" means both "to entangle" and "to disentangle." Yes, "to ravel" can be used to mean "to unravel." :roll:
jwhouk:
Fix the following sentence so it is completely correct:
The most common word in the English language is.
Sent from my NXA8QC116 using Tapatalk
Tova:
I take it that you're after a more specific fix than, say, "Gliosus is not the most common word in the English language."
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