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HSS Posted 17 years ago
Grammar

Hit your Head

You would say, "I hit my head against the ceiling."
1) Someone might ask you "What did you hit?" and you may say "I hit my head."
2) Someone might also ask you "What did you hit your head against?" and you may say "I hit it against the ceiling."
Are these natural ways to ask the questions? They sound a bit awkward to me somehow. How would you ask things like those when your friend seem to have hit his head against the ceiling, maybe, while fixing a room light? Would you say "Where did you hit your head against?" ?
Thanks!

Hiro/ Sendai, Japan
  

Top answer

" "Where did you hit your head against" is ungrammatical. " Native speakers struggle with this particular situation all the time. The solution is to not hit your head.

— Avangi

  • " "Where did you hit your head against" is ungrammatical.
  • " Native speakers struggle with this particular situation all the time.
  • The solution is to not hit your head.
  • "No, stupid!
  • " - A.
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17 Answers
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"What did you hit your head on / against?"

"Where did you hit your head against" is ungrammatical.

"Where did you hit your head?" leads to the same ambiguity as the original: "I hit it on the left side."

Native speakers struggle with this particular situation all the time. The solution is to not hit your head.

"No, stupid! I mean
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Help! Jim, I intended to reply to your reply, and ended up EDITING it out of existence! I'm sorry! It was so good, please forgive me and repeat your post!
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subject + VSOP + BP + with + OI !!

I smashed my thumb with a hammer.
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Avangi"Where did you hit your head?" leads to the same ambiguity as the original: "I hit it on the left side."

Do you mean "the left side of your head" by "the left side"?
If you wanted to ask what part of his body he hit against something, how would you ask it? "What did you hit"? "What did you hit on it"? "What part of you did you hit on it"?
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CalifJimHelp! Jim, I intended to reply to your reply, and ended up EDITING it out of existence! I'm sorry! It was so good, please forgive me and repeat your post!

So, is this not what Jim wrote, but somebody else accidentally wrote over it?
And did Avangi write to his written-over reply as follows?
Avangisubject + VSOP +
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This is getting pretty technical!

Ha! I assumed that you, HSS, were the one who wiped out Jim's post! I guess that culprit will remain anonymous. (I was going to ask how you did it, in case I wanted to edit Jim's posts in the future.)

Actually, I wrote my post while this mischief was going on,
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I"m the one who accidentally removed CalifJim's post. I thought that was obvious because my name was in the "edited by" line. I didn't intend to try to remain anonymous. Sorry, sorry, sorry for all the confusion!
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Hi Khoff. I was just kidding. (I don't seem to have an "edited by" line. It was probably obvious to Jim.)

I did a search, thinking it might have been posted elsewhere, but I haven't mastered our search engine.

- A.
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That was pretty stupid. I'm not happy about it. Emotion: angry

I don't have the time or the heart to reconstruct it now.
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