Peter Humphrey wrote: > On Saturday 02 January 2016 15:06:37 Alan McKinnon wrote: > >> "half as big again" means "50% larger than". > That is, take the original measure, add one-half of it again and you have > 1.5 x the original. > >> i.e. calculate 50% and add it, making the total 150%. >> It's an English idiom, so don;t try to figure it out from each word, >> just recognize the whole phrase. English is full of that shit. > That's too rude. Rather, I'd say it's rich with all manner of idioms, all of > which are expressive and help to make the point clear. Tough on people new > to the language, but that's life. Numerous invasions and occupations by > foreign peoples have contributed to what we see today. > > In contrast, Americans are set on destroying all this richness, I suppose in > the interest of "simplicity", which introduces either ambiguity or ugliness > instead. They've already practically scrapped four whole verb tenses, and > now adverbs are going the same way. > > Pigs and whistles, indeed. >
As a American and a person who only speaks English, I'm sometimes stumped too. Sometimes I have to read something twice or struggle to find that word I am needing to use. I suspect I am not alone in this. I might add, this is why when I read a email, I try to put the most positive light on it. Sometimes even a native English speaker just doesn't quite get the right thing to come out. Add in spelling errors and such or someone speaking English as a second or even third language and you can really get a mess. Let's not get into those translation thingys either. LOL I'll be glad when spell checkers add "thingy" to the list. ;-) Dale :-) :-)
