Date: Mon, 02 Jun 2003 08:09:43 -0700 From: Terry Lambert <tlambert2@mindspring.com> To: "Gary W. Swearingen" <swear@attbi.com> Cc: chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: grammar Message-ID: <3EDB68B7.A9D7A02F@mindspring.com> References: <3ECD3A8C.1040506@potentialtech.com> <00ae01c32668$2ff5ad70$2441d5cc@nitanjared> <20030531072026.O33085@welearn.com.au> <20030530213625.GA41089@wopr.caltech.edu> <20030531080645.Q33085@welearn.com.au> <qvsmqvnjtq.mqv@localhost.localdomain> <20030601113948.G33085@welearn.com.au> <152193951140.20030601041329@myrealbox.com> <hxd6hxnvqa.6hx@localhost.localdomain>
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"Gary W. Swearingen" wrote: > Tim Vanderhoek <t.vanderhoek@utoronto.ca> writes: > > (4) Call the police in case there is an explosion. > > Interesting. I strongly disagree. Sentence (4) tells me to call the > police now to prepare for an explosion which only MIGHT happen. I guess > that's called an "idiomatic" usage, because it doesn't seem right when > one analyzes it. Here's a similar example in which the idiomatic meaning > is more obvious: "Wear your jacket, in case it gets windy." (Now THAT'S > a precaution.) In (4), that reading is so absurd that I know the writer > must have meant (3) (or (5), below). You can't put too much water in a nuclear reactor. -- Terry
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