Sentence

Question

Is this sentence correct? The real win is not in how long your kite stands in the sky. The real win is in how many kites you cut before your kite succumb to the inevitable. Thanks

CalifJim · Accepted Answer

rajesh jainThe real win is not in how long your kite stands / stays in the sky. The real win is in how many kites you cut before your kite succumbs to the inevitable.

The mistake in grammar is shown above. You need an 's'.

'stay' seems more idiomatic to me than 'stands'.

What does it mean to cut a kite?

CJ

Prajwalkr · Answer

CalifJimWhat does it mean to cut a kite?

Hi CJ
In India and other Asian countries, children play this traditional game of cutting each other's kites. Here is what the game is all about:

Many children make their own kites. They strive to make their kites the strongest(Eg: make the thread strong by sticking glass pieces to it). Then a competition is held between them, in which all the children not only have the fun of flying their kites high, but also have a task of cutting the string of other contestant's kites. They bring their kites very close to cut the strings of other kites. Believe me, it is quite hard. I was the first one to have my kite cut.

(I played only once)
The last kite to survive wins the game.

Prajwal

Mister Micawber · Answer

Thanks, Praj—very interesting!

CalifJim · Answer

prajwalkrI was the first one to have my kite cut.

Aaawww.

Thanks for the culture capsule!

CJ

Dimsumexpress · Answer

Prajwalkr's story brings back memories.... It is absolutely true in many Asian countries, at least it was when I was a kid. Kids growing up in under-developed countries a little over a generation ago had very little in their lives. Many working parents couldn't even afford to send their kids to school, let alone buying new clothes and toys. So kids in that era invented their own toys. Kite is one toy they could make with very little money. I remember it cost me less than $1.00 to make 500 feet of razor-sharp line and a kite. We would to go to the junkyard or dumps for broken or defective fluorescent light which is to be smashed in to really fine power, almost like power sugar. Then we would go to a hardware store to buy $.20 worth of rubberish material which had the consistency of tar. It is also a petroleum byproduct. Then we would either go to sewing factory's dumpsters to looks for thrown-away thread spools, or spend $.20 cents to buy a new spool of thread to make the "line". To produce a line (thread) with the razor's edge, we used a soup can and punched two fine holes directly cross from one and other. Then we thread the sewing thread through the can and tied one end to a hand cracked device we made with bamboo for drying the line coming out of the can with the class coating later on.  Using a oil lamp under the can, we would melt the rubberish glob about the size of 3/4 cube of butter. When the it began to melt, we added the finely smashed glass power to the can. As it heated up, the mixture had the consistency of honey. It wouldn't leak out because it was rather thick and the two holes had the thread it them. When the mixture began to bubble, we slowly pull the thread through the can until the line is completely transferred to the drying rig. We usually did this toward the later part of the afternoon to avoid the sun heat which made it difficult for the coating to dry. As the evening came, the cool breeze helped the drying. The most expensive part is the hand spool for the kite flying which is also made of bamboo. Think of its shape as a regular thread spool with a chopstick going through the center of the of it so that the part of the chopstick exposed is used as handles.  We transferred the dried line with the glass coating to the hand spool the next day. For the kite, we could find broken bamboo from scaffolding at construction site pretty easy and waste paper from printing shops. It sounded strange how we as kids could roam around. Well, during that time, many factories and print shops were literally our neighbors. So now we have the razor-sharp line, we'd to make the frame of a kite with thin bamboo strips, and glued them on the edge of a pre-shaped paper for the kite. We used rice paste to seal the paper edge wrapping the bamboo frame and let it dry for a couple of hours. Back in the day, there weren't tall buildings so the prevailing wind made kite flying quite easy and kite fighting was a favorite pastime because kids could brag about how well his line was made and how powerful his kite was. Usually the bigger the kite, the fast the line can be run, just a a band saw going at maximum speed. With a well coated line with finely smashed glass power, I had seen pretty severe cuts when the line is going full speed with the wind. I am not sure if kids in those days had this kind of experience  in this country.

Mister Micawber · Answer

Well, I sure didn't.  All we had to do was keep the kite away from the kite-eating trees.  Excellent narrative, dimsum.  You should publish that for posterity somewhere—how about Wikipedia?

Dimsumexpress · Answer

Mister Micawber Excellent narrative, dimsum. You should publish that for posterity somewhere—how about Wikipedia?

Thanks, very pleased to hear that validation. I just thought I was going share my childhood memories.

Sentence

Top answer

Get the Weekly English Kit 📬

Related Questions