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Dayvenkirq View Drop Down
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Points: 10970 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 27 2014 at 06:55
Got a post from The Mentalist FB account that says this:
Quote It's ‪#‎NationalDogDay‬, but Jane had a hard go of it. ‪#‎TheMentalist‬
"Had a hard go of it"? That's one verbal phrase I've never heard before. Googled it and came up with zilch.

.
.
.

Here's another one: "heaping helping". Taken from a review on Pearl Jam's Ten:
Quote Some of the songwriting is also pretty bland. "Garden," "Oceans," "Black," "Jeremy," and "Release" are all limp wristed attempts at quasi-rock balladry, except maybe "Jeremy" which is probably the most sloppily constructed thing on here. Even Metallica did better on "The Outlaw Torn" in 1996, so what the f**k? "The boy was something mommy wouldn't wear..." dude, what were you inhaling when you wrote these lyrics? Fumes from burning rubber and lead paint? There's poetry and then there's a heaping helping of WTF?
If you google, you'll see that it's actually used in a number of cases, though not enough for someone to focus on that verbal phrase and try to explain it.


Edited by Dayvenkirq - August 27 2014 at 07:39
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Points: 23104 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 27 2014 at 08:36
I like the cut of your jibThumbs Up
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Points: 10970 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 27 2014 at 08:47
^ Is that an expression I'm not familiar with?
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Points: 37575 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 27 2014 at 09:43
Originally posted by Dayvenkirq Dayvenkirq wrote:

Here's another one: "heaping helping". Taken from a review on Pearl Jam's Ten:
Quote Some of the songwriting is also pretty bland. "Garden," "Oceans," "Black," "Jeremy," and "Release" are all limp wristed attempts at quasi-rock balladry, except maybe "Jeremy" which is probably the most sloppily constructed thing on here. Even Metallica did better on "The Outlaw Torn" in 1996, so what the f**k? "The boy was something mommy wouldn't wear..." dude, what were you inhaling when you wrote these lyrics? Fumes from burning rubber and lead paint? There's poetry and then there's a heaping helping of WTF?
If you google, you'll see that it's actually used in a number of cases, though not enough for someone to focus on that verbal phrase and try to explain it.
Erm, well the review is not exactly literature and to that end it is a little ironic that the reviewer should criticise a poetic phrase with two poetic phrases of his own. Personally I find nothing wrong with Vedder's phrase and it is perfectly understandable in the context of the song. Since a picture says a thousand words, here is 1000 words on exactly what Vedder was saying:


Anyway, heaping helping is an idiom, and not a common one, so I guess it's regional. Heaping is a made-up adjective (ie it's one of those verbs used as an adjective that us British get bend out of shape over) that means "large" - most of us would used "heaped" in this context, "Helping" is obviously used as a noun to mean "serving" (as in a meal) or "portion". Heaping helping would mean "large portion". 
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Points: 26138 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 27 2014 at 09:45
I've never heard "heaping helping" before, I don't think.  It sounds like something people might say in my part of the world, though (Georgia).
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Points: 37575 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 27 2014 at 09:47
Originally posted by Dayvenkirq Dayvenkirq wrote:

Got a post from The Mentalist FB account that says this:
Quote It's ‪#‎NationalDogDay‬, but Jane had a hard go of it. ‪#‎TheMentalist‬
"Had a hard go of it"? That's one verbal phrase I've never heard before. Googled it and came up with zilch..
Heaven only knows. It could mean they tried hard to do "it", (whatever "it" is), or they had a hard time trying. 
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Points: 5154 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 27 2014 at 10:50
This one's not about odd words but about something I always found a bit funny in English:

For the adjective meaning 'easy' and for it's connected verb, in Spanish we have respectively:
Facil - Facilitar

In Italian:
Facile - Facilitare

In French:
Facile - Faciliter

In English however, the adjective is 'easy' but the verb is 'facilitate'. It's kind of funny that only the verb took the Latin root but not the adjective.
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Points: 37575 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 27 2014 at 11:27
Originally posted by Gerinski Gerinski wrote:

This one's not about odd words but about something I always found a bit funny in English:

For the adjective meaning 'easy' and for it's connected verb, in Spanish we have respectively:
Facil - Facilitar

In Italian:
Facile - Facilitare

In French:
Facile - Faciliter

In English however, the adjective is 'easy' but the verb is 'facilitate'. It's kind of funny that only the verb took the Latin root but not the adjective.
Erm, we did, it's "facile" though the meaning has become something more than just "easy"  but "easily accomplished"
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Points: 23104 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 27 2014 at 11:31
In English it's pronounced like basil right (only facile)?
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Points: 26138 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 27 2014 at 11:43
Originally posted by Guldbamsen Guldbamsen wrote:

In English it's pronounced like basil right (only facile)?
Only if you're referring to Basil Fawlty.
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Points: 5154 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 27 2014 at 12:28
Another one which is funny to us non-English natives is that English does not have as a verb 'to can', but you have to use the relatively complicated expression 'to be able to'. The fact of 'being able to' something is a very fundamental life item, and all the other languages I speak have a word for it, 'poder', 'pouvoir', 'potere'...  It's funny that English didn't bother to make a verb for this very essential concept in life.
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Points: 26138 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 27 2014 at 12:36
Originally posted by Gerinski Gerinski wrote:

Another one which is funny to us non-English natives is that English does not have as a verb 'to can', but you have to use the relatively complicated expression 'to be able to'. The fact of 'being able to' something is a very fundamental life item, and all the other languages I speak have a word for it, 'poder', 'pouvoir', 'potere'...  It's funny that English didn't bother to make a verb for this very essential concept in life.
Because we can't do anything.
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Points: 10970 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 27 2014 at 12:38
... is another way of saying: "can" is a modal verb. It doesn't need the infinitive marker. Are there really other languages that do need it for a modal verb?

Edited by Dayvenkirq - August 27 2014 at 12:39
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Points: 5154 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 27 2014 at 12:55
Originally posted by HolyMoly HolyMoly wrote:

Because we can't do anything.
LOL

Originally posted by Dayvenkirq Dayvenkirq wrote:

... is another way of saying: "can" is a modal verb. It doesn't need the infinitive marker. Are there really other languages that do need it for a modal verb?
But infinitive is also a fundamentally used tense. Probably you will not understand this sentence in Spanish, but here it goes anyway:

'En la vida debes poder alimentar a tus hijos'

This means 'In life you must be able to feed your children'.

But the 'be able to' sounds unnecessarily forced to us, naturally you would expect there to be a one-word verb so you could say something like 'In life you must can feed your children'.
 
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Points: 8543 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 27 2014 at 12:58
"To can" - are members of the family Ramphastidae of near passerine birds from the Neotropics. The Ramphastidae family is most closely related to the American barbets. They are brightly marked and have large, often colorful bills. They also like to eat Froot Loops.

Wait. That's not right.   
I can understand your anger at me, but what did the horse I rode in on ever do to you?
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Dayvenkirq View Drop Down
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Points: 10970 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 27 2014 at 14:57
Originally posted by Gerinski Gerinski wrote:

Originally posted by HolyMoly HolyMoly wrote:

Because we can't do anything.
LOL

Originally posted by Dayvenkirq Dayvenkirq wrote:

... is another way of saying: "can" is a modal verb. It doesn't need the infinitive marker. Are there really other languages that do need it for a modal verb?
But infinitive is also a fundamentally used tense. Probably you will not understand this sentence in Spanish, but here it goes anyway:

'En la vida debes poder alimentar a tus hijos'

This means 'In life you must be able to feed your children'.

But the 'be able to' sounds unnecessarily forced to us, naturally you would expect there to be a one-word verb so you could say something like 'In life you must can feed your children'.
 
It's interesting that the idea would be phrased that way for years, yet it still sounds forced to the Spanish people. Not sure I'm familiar with that nuance in English or Russian.
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Points: 10970 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 27 2014 at 15:01
More from music reviews: "besotted", "ascetic", "duffer", ... as well as those that aren't: "kludge".


Edited by Dayvenkirq - August 28 2014 at 01:42
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Dean View Drop Down
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Points: 37575 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 27 2014 at 18:21
Originally posted by Gerinski Gerinski wrote:

Another one which is funny to us non-English natives is that English does not have as a verb 'to can', but you have to use the relatively complicated expression 'to be able to'. The fact of 'being able to' something is a very fundamental life item, and all the other languages I speak have a word for it, 'poder', 'pouvoir', 'potere'...  It's funny that English didn't bother to make a verb for this very essential concept in life.
Hmm, the Spanish, French and Italian words you have used would (I assume just by looking at them) also mean power, and in the context of "be able to" we do used "power" in that capability sense as well as in an authoritative sense.

Since we've never had a single word that means "be able to" in a specific sense it's hard for me to imagine why we'd want one, unless you can substitute the verb "need" or "power" some-such without altering the basic meaning of the sentence or phrase.
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Points: 37575 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 27 2014 at 18:35
Originally posted by Guldbamsen Guldbamsen wrote:

In English it's pronounced like basil right (only facile)?
I hope not.

Pronunciation is a minefield not only regionally but also socially. The English and the American's can't even agree on the pronunciation of basil (GB: baz-ill, USA: bay-zil) - neither would be a rhyme for facile for me since the "e" at the end modifies the sound of the preceding vowel just as it does in agile, mile, smile, docile and fertile and most other words that end in 'ile' ... facile rhymes with all those words.
 

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Points: 10970 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 29 2014 at 04:04
"A la mode". Here we go again with this US-vs.-UK thing.
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