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Antonia Posted 21 years ago
Vocabulary

If anything

Can you please help me?
What is the meaning of if anything in this sentence:

They had never argued because he was too laid back to care. If anything, this made her think of him more as she would a brother rather than a potential lover.
  

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10 Answers
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"If anything" is a contracted form of "The only thing, if any, is that..."
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Hi, Antonia,
In your context, "if anything" means:
"if she could compare their relatonship to anything, ...", "if it made her think of anything..."
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Thank you, you are a life saver!
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It's a shorthand way of saying something like "if it had any effect at all." Notice that it's not clear if "this" refers to their never arguing or to his being so laid back. Such a lax use of "this" without a clear antecedent is a pet peeve of many English teachers, at least in the US.
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I agree g caldwell,
moreover, I have to translate the expression
and that's what frustrates me.
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What language do you have to translate it into? (not that I'd be of any help if it's not into French...)
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Croatian. But I've already figured it out. I usually just have to sleep it over, and then I can think of a word or an expression I'm looking for.
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I'm sure you will. Sleep helps in many cases!
Sleep tight then!
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