What exactly are you translating right now??

that, indeed, is just cruel start to the day!

SusiGo wrote:

… when you translate the sentence "... high cheekbones that cut his face into plains, and a tight mouth that looked like it could curl up in the corners, but didn't" and go on thinking "Oh, yeah, I know that man." 

"Plains" or "planes"?

veecee wrote:

SusiGo wrote:

… when you translate the sentence "... high cheekbones that cut his face into plains, and a tight mouth that looked like it could curl up in the corners, but didn't" and go on thinking "Oh, yeah, I know that man." 

"Plains" or "planes"?

I hope it's planes (the height and width of something, not to be confused with an airplane, lol). His cheeks and cheekbones aren't *that* large, to be plains. Damned English, with all its homonyms and multiple meanings for the same word.

221B Baker Street wrote:

ancientsgate wrote:

Damned English, with all its homonyms and multiple meanings for the same word.

You're a native speaker and you admit it. Can you imagine how non-natives feel? Sometimes I'm really at a loss what a person means by using some words.
Today I've read an article about shooting "Parade's End" and there was "And Cumberbatch found his acting skills further stretched by the demands of this ancient sport. One scene, which involved a group walking and talking, culminating in Cumberbatch tee-ing off, had to be repeatedly reshot as words and bodies and timing got muddled. Finally, everything fell into place and Cumberbatch swung his club magnificently - unfortunately forgetting to hang on to it.
What does 'to hang on to it' mean in this context? What did he forget to do?

To hang onto something is to keep a grip.

Last edited by Smoggy_London_Air (August 17, 2012 3:45 am)

221B Baker Street wrote:

Smoggy_London_Air, that's what I supposed, thank you! But it would have been easier to understand if they wrote 'he failed to keep a firm grip' .

But we do love our idioms!

221B Baker Street wrote:

ancientsgate wrote:

Damned English, with all its homonyms and multiple meanings for the same word.

You're a native speaker and you admit it. Can you imagine how non-natives feel? Sometimes I'm really at a loss what a person means by using some words.
Today I've read an article about shooting "Parade's End" and there was "And Cumberbatch found his acting skills further stretched by the demands of this ancient sport. One scene, which involved a group walking and talking, culminating in Cumberbatch tee-ing off, had to be repeatedly reshot as words and bodies and timing got muddled. Finally, everything fell into place and Cumberbatch swung his club magnificently - unfortunately forgetting to hang on to it.
What does 'to hang on to it' mean in this context? What did he forget to do?

It sounds as though he swung his golf club and accidentally let it go flying out of his hand.  Maybe it went and hit someone in the head or something. Embarrassing!  To hang on to something means to keep your hands on it, not let go of it until you're ready. You can also hang on to an idea-- maybe someone wants you to think differently about XYZ, but XYZ makes sense to you, and you want to "hang on" to your ideas about XYZ.

Every language has something called colloquial expressions (slang), which further complicates things. English has scads of them, and in English's case, it's further complicated by the Brit/American/Australian thing, since we all have our own colloquialisms, depending on where we live.

Colloquialisms include words (such as y'all, gonna, and wanna), phrases (such as old as the hills, raining cats and dogs, and dead as a doornail) and aphorisms (such as There's more than one way to skin a cat).

Y'all means you all. As in, "Hello, there, y'all!" and "Y'all going to the movies tonight?" I think it's mostly a Texan US thing.
Gonna is going to, but we pronounce it gonna, and it's often written gonna in dialogue, between informal speakers.
Wanna is want to, but we pronounce it wanna, for the same reasons.
Old as the hills has nothing to do with hills-- it just means that someone or something is very, very old--- ancient.
Raining cats and dogs is just an expression-- no cats and dogs are coming down from the clouds. It just means it's raining really hard.
Dead as a doornail has nothing to do with doors and their nails-- it just means dead, completely dead, and going to stay that way. People and animals can be DAAD, but so can ideas.
There's more than one way to skin a cat has nothing to do with cats or sharp knives-- it just means there's more than one way to get something done.

Our homonyms are infamous and difficult for even native speakers who are lousy spellers-- there, they're, their.  Pair, pare and pear. Plane and plain. Alter and altar. Bear and bare. Censor, censer, sensor. Medal, meddle, metal, mettle, all of which are just about indistinguishable in regular speech. You can google English homonyms for an extensive list, but get ready to be confused.

221B Baker Street wrote:

Smoggy_London_Air, that's what I supposed, thank you! But it would have been easier to understand if they wrote 'he failed to keep a firm grip' .

Not easier for us. Easier for us would be whatever is most commonly used for a certain idea, so it won't sound all stilted-- in this case, he didn't hang on to the thing! His grip could have been loose, come to think of it, and he *still* could have hung onto it.

By the way, only people are "hanged"-- remember that opening of The Great Game (or was it the banker one? whichever, you know the scene I mean) where Sherlock told that prisoner guy that he wouldn't get hung for what he'd done--  hanged, maybe.... wiseass! *laugh*  We hang our clothing on a hook (or on a hanger, not to be confused with a hangar, which is where an airplane is parked for the night), but then it's hung. Not hanged. Only people get hanged. And no, I don't know why.

Last edited by ancientsgate (August 17, 2012 3:56 am)

Smoggy_London_Air wrote:

221B Baker Street wrote:

That's the problem! So there's nothing to do but to learn English further

I studied French idioms, and realized the only reason that I understand the English ones is because they've been hammered into my head since before I was born.

Male Canadian French-speakers can call their wives, female lovers, etc. "mon petit chou" (forgive my spelling-- it's been a long time) which means literally my little cabbage, but the expression has nothing to do with cabbages. I believe all languages have these idiomatic colloquialisms. Not sure, but I know French and English both do. I also studied German about 100 years ago in HS, but I've forgotten more of that than I ever knew, unfortunately.

221B Baker Street wrote:

ancientsgate, you must be a teacher or a tutor, I think  .
I have no problems with phrases like 'it rains cats and dogs'. The most difficult for me is when a verb acquires an enormous number of possible prepositions, such as hang on, hang out, hang over, hang up, etc. I know most of them but sometimes they drive me mad .

I am a nobody, but I have done some writing, and I've also done extensive beta reading work for several fan fic authors. I guess I have... a gift for my language. My daughter in law has a college degree in English-- I'm sure she knows lots of stuff I have no idea about. I do love reading and spelling and fixing grammar, though, so.... frustrated teacher maybe. I think English is a beautiful language, even though it all lives in the back of our throats, the way German does, lol.

The hang thing is interesting. As a native speaker, I never give the differences between all those a thought. Wow... it must be *hard* to keep straight. We even have an expression when we say, "Hang it all!" when we get frustrated and are at the end of our patience. There's hang in, too-- "Hang in there, it'll get better," means don't give up.