"Did you Latin teacher tell you...?""Good move by.."

Question

Do these sentences make sense to you? How would a native speaker of English phrase them?

A. Did your Latin teacher tell you that you need to memorise the lines just this morning?

B. Good move by her parents. (When commenting about someone's parents' decision on moving so that their children do not need to travel that far to school)

C. The program crushed. (Should it be crashed?)

Thanks in advance.

Best wishes,

PBF

Nona the brit · Accepted Answer

A. The 'just' is a little confusing here. Do you mean that the teacher said it 'just this morning', meaning this morning, or that the lines should be memorised 'just this morning' and no other morning?

B. Yes, although 'good move by' is normally used metaphorically and not where an actual move has taken place.

C crashed.

Yankee · Answer

PeaceblinkfriendDo these sentences make sense to you? How would a native speaker of English phrase them?

A. Did your Latin teacher tell you that you need to memorise the lines just this morning? I'm not sure this is the intended meaning, but I would suggest rewording this sentence this way: Did your Latin teacher tell only (just) this morning you that you need to memorize the lines?

B. Good move by her parents. (When commenting about someone's parents' decision on moving so that their children do not need to travel that far to school) OK, the expression "good move" doesn't necessarily have to refer to an actual move -- you could also use the word 'decision' or 'strategy' instead of 'move'.

C. The program ~~crushed~~. (Should it be crashed? Yes, especially if you are referring to a computer program)

Oops, Nona was faster.

Clive · Answer

Hi,

Do these sentences make sense to you? How would a native speaker of English phrase them?

A. Did your Latin teacher tell you that you need to memorise the lines just this morning? Did your Latin teacher tell you just this morning that you need to memorize the lines?

B. Good move by her parents. (When commenting about someone's parents' decision on moving so that their children do not need to travel that far to school) OK

C. The program crushed. (Should it be crashed?) Yes, 'crashed'.

Best wishes, Clive

Peaceblinkfriend · Answer

Thank you all for giving me suggestions about those sentences.

Hmmm...so when someone says say 'Claire made a good move', it means that Claire made a good decision instead of Clarie made a good decision to move her home, right?

By the way, could I say '...made a good decision to move' instead of '...made a good decision to move her home'? Are there any differences in usuage between them?

Thanks again.

Best wishes,

PBF

Clive · Answer

Hi again,

Hmmm...so when someone says say 'Claire made a good move', it means that Claire made a good decision instead of Clarie made a good decision to move her home, right? Yes, usually.

By the way, could I say '...made a good decision to move' <<< Yes instead of '...made a good decision to move her home'? Are there any differences in usuage between them? If we stop living in place A and start living in place B, we normally say 'I moved'. We don't say 'I moved my home'.

Best wishes, Clive

Peaceblinkfriend · Answer

Ah. I understand now. Thank you again for replying to my post Clive.

But what about this sentence? She made a good decision on moving. Does this sentence tell you that she have decided to move? I think it is kind of awkward that we, the readers, don't know what was being referred to by 'moving'. Do you have any suggestions in expressing that in a better way?

Thanks again.

Best wishes,

PBF

Clive · Answer

Hi,

But what about this sentence? She made a good decision on moving. ['On' is OK, though I'd prefer "about moving".]

Does this sentence tell you that she have decided to move? [Actually, it just tells me she made a good decision about it. Maybe her decision was to move, maybe her decision was not to move.]

I think it is kind of awkward that we, the readers, don't know what was being referred to by 'moving'. Do you have any suggestions in expressing that in a better way? Generally, you would know from the context. However, let's consider this scenario.

Someone walks into the room and says 'Have you heard the news about Mary? She's moving.'

I would understand from this that she is going to live somewhere else. 'Moving' is a very standard expression for this.

Best wishes, Clive

Peaceblinkfriend · Answer

I understand now. Thank you for answering my questions, Clive.

Best wishes,

PBF

"Did you Latin teacher tell you...?""Good move by.."

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