Reply
Wed 9 Feb, 2011 08:05 am
This is perhaps from a marriage personal:
Spirited, country living woman, 32, musician, fit, green, enjoys outdoor activities, movies, surprises. Seeks man with similar interests...
What does "green" mean here?
@Justin Xu,
Green here almost certainly means "environmentally conscious". The actual meaning is pretty vague, it could mean she recycles or drives an electric car.
This use of the word "green" is a fairly new buzz word (wikipedia implies that the term was first used in 1979). I find this use of the word quite annoying.
@maxdancona,
Quote:I find this use of the word quite annoying.
More so than
fit or
woman or was it
free spirited, Max? It's a personal column. Isn't brevity the norm?
@Ragman,
Thank you for your reply. I could never think of this meaning!
@maxdancona,
Thank you very much. It is really difficult to come up with this meaning.
@Justin Xu,
Quote:I could never think of this meaning!
Your reply, above, signals a future, a seemingly open ended future, Justin. Is this the meaning you want to convey or do you mean,
I could
have never [think]
thought of this meaning!
OR
I could never
have [think]
thought of this meaning!
@JTT,
Sorry for the late reply.
If the two sentences mean the same, I mean what they denote.
It dosen't matter the word "never" comes before or after "have". Is that right?
@Justin Xu,
Quote:I initially wrote: Your reply, above, signals a future, a seemingly open ended future, Justin. Is this the meaning you want to convey or do you mean,
I could have never [think] thought of this meaning!
OR
I could never have [think] thought of this meaning!
===================================
[I'm in blue, Justin is in black text]
Justin Xu replied:
Sorry for the late reply.
No problem, Justin. Think nothing of it.
If the two sentences mean the same, I mean what they denote.
They could mean the same thing, Justin, but they don't both address the same span of time.
You wrote:
I could never think of this meaning!
Let's call when you wrote the above TIME 2. TIME 1 is the moment you first asked the question in your original post.
That means that from TIME2, which was the moment you wrote this,
"Thank you for your reply. I could never think of this meaning!"
until an undefined time in the future, you suggest that you could not think of that meaning.
Writing it as you have does not include the time before TIME 2, yet I think that you meant to include that time period or you meant solely to address the time period from TIME 2 back to TIME 1.
Quote:It dosen't matter the word "never" comes before or after "have". Is that right?
You're right. The positioning of 'never' is quite flexible.
Normal neutral position:
I could never have thought of this meaning!
Possibles:
I could have never thought of this meaning!
I never could have thought of this meaning!
Never could I have thought of this meaning!
I could have thought of this meaning, never! [possible, like an afterthought, strong emphasis]
@JTT,
Thank you very much for your detailed explaination JTT.
I finally understand the difference between what I said in TIME2 and your revision.
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