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Usenet Posted 19 years ago
Usage

An interesting sentence

Dear all,
I may be too lazy to find out the answer by myself, but I really need your advice on this sentence. This paragraph is excerpted from "The Red-headed League" by Sherlock Holmes, which is mainly about his description of a newly met person.
Your right hand is a size larger than your left. The muscles are more developed from hard work. The fish tattooed just above your wrist could only have been done in China. And, what else can be indicated by that right cuff so shiny for five inches, and the left one with the smooth patch near the elbow where you rest it upon the desk?

What I got confused with is the last sentence: "What else .. the left one with the smooth patch near the elbow where you rest it upon the desk?"
I am not sure what "where" and " it" are referred to in this sentence. Would you be kind enough to help with that? Thanks in advance. Take care,
Gloria
  

Top answer

[nq:1]Dear all, I may be too lazy to find out the answer by myself, but I really need your advice ... referred to in this sentence. Would you be kind enough to help with that?

  • [nq:1]Dear all, I may be too lazy to find out the answer by myself, but I really need your advice ...
  • referred to in this sentence.
  • Would you be kind enough to help with that?
  • Thanks in advance.
  • * explains why the left hand is weaker than the right, at least by Doyle's medical reasoning.
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13 Answers
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[nq:1]Dear all, I may be too lazy to find out the answer by myself, but I really need your advice ... referred to in this sentence. Would you be kind enough to help with that? Thanks in advance. Take care, Gloria[/nq]
This part of the clause,
*the left one with the
smooth patch near the elbow where you rest it upon the desk?*

explains why the left hand is weaker than the right
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You'll never really learn this language without that type of
[nq:1]coaching, and it seems less than credulous to me that you couldn't tap this resource with a little effort on your part.[/nq]
Am I just credulous, or should that be "less than credible"? Or even "incredible"?
Chris R
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[nq:1]Am I just credulous, or should that be "less than credible"? Or even "incredible"?[/nq]
Yes, credulous is what gullible people are. It's very funny, isn't it? Snooty advice and une telle connerie all in the same sentence. Mind you, plenty of people confuse "credulous" and "credible" chez les rosbifs so maybe we shouldn't be too severe, but posts conveying advice and condescension in equa
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[nq:1]Dear all, I may be too lazy to find out the answer by myself, but I really need your advice ... are referred to in this sentence. Would you be kind enough to help with that? Thanks in advance. Take care,[/nq]
Read it as: "and the left one with smooth patch near the elbow (that is located) where you rest (your arm encased in the coat jacket) upon the desk."
Holmes is noting that wear
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[nq:1]You really need to touch base with a fluent English speaker, live and in person. You'll never really learn this ... it seems less than credulous to me that you couldn't tap this resource with a little effort on your part.[/nq]
Less than credulous? That's the kind of usage that Gloria would write in to ask for help in understanding. Responders would re-write the sentence because the usage
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[nq:2]You really need to touch base with a fluent English ... tap this resource with a little effort on your part.[/nq]
[nq:1]Less than credulous? That's the kind of usage that Gloria would write in to ask for help in understanding. Responders would re-write the sentence because the usage is less than acceptable. Tony Cooper Orlando, FL[/nq]
Be that as it may, I am right in the advice I am
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[nq:1]As to my use of credulous, I don't see a problem in conveying the meaning that I can't believe the ... tutor, unless she is from the North and is escaping the notice of the thought police through an illegal portal.[/nq]
You wrote "credulous" where you should have written something else, probably "credible", while seated upon your high horse, thus making yourself ridiculous. Stop digging.
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[nq:1]Be that as it may, I am right in the advice I am giving her, and being upbraided by other posters isn't going to change the fact that in the long run, the little self-indulgent Twinkee is only hurting herself.[/nq]
You are a bit self-indulgent, yourself.
[nq:1]Everyone needs help Tony, but I can tell from the frequency of her posts that she doesn't care in the least about improving h
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[nq:1]Be that as it may, I am right in the advice I am giving her, and being upbraided by other ... care in the least about improving her skills. If she did, her conceptual problems would upgrade over time. They don't.[/nq]
You are, presumably, a native hatched American. Yet, you continually struggle with using the right word. Evidently, you don't understand the meaning of some of the words yo
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[nq:1]Be that[/nq]
"That" being Joanne's erroneous use of "credulous" where "credible" was called for.
[nq:1]as it may, I am right in the advice I am giving her,[/nq]
And yet no one agrees with you, and several people have posted for the express purpose of disagreeing with you.
[nq:1]and being upbraided by other posters[/nq]
Who's being upbraided? The obvious meaning is that Gl

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