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Dobbin Posted 19 years ago
Vocabulary

the very mechanism itself

0Hello again,02br
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00Please consider the following sentence (from a book on Freud's psychoanalysis):02br
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01b00It was the very mechanism of repression itself that made these changes possible.02b02br
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00Shouldn't we rather say 01u00either02u00 "the very mechanism of repression" 01u00or02u00 "the mechanism of repression itself"? Does combining the words "very" and "itself" in one sentence add to its meaning or simply makes it redundant?0-
  

Top answer

02br 02br 00> This was and remains one of the most controversial Mac 02br 00> issues and not a year comes by without some Macintosh 02br 00> fans asking, demanding or simply wishing for even just02br 00> one more button. 02br 02br 00> However, back in 1984 it wasn’t the single button that 02br 00> attracted most of the attention – it was the very 02br 00> presence of the mouse itself. 0-

— Eviltony

  • 02br 02br 00> This was and remains one of the most controversial Mac 02br 00> issues and not a year comes by without some Macintosh 02br 00> fans asking, demanding or simply wishing for even just02br 00> one more button.
  • 02br 02br 00> However, back in 1984 it wasn’t the single button that 02br 00> attracted most of the attention – it was the very 02br 00> presence of the mouse itself.
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5 Answers
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0 They add to both the meaning and the emphasis of the sentence.02br
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00I would need to be sure, but I think you will find that the 'mechanism' has already been the subject of comment, and most likely in a negative sense - possibly to the extent that the reader is likely to have the impression that the mechanism could 01i00not02i00 be what made the
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0Thank you, Eviltony. I would argue, however, that in your example "very" refers to "presence", and "itself" refers to "mouse". We could state this sentence otherwise (and ungrammatically): "It was the presence itself of the mouse itself". However odd and unelegant it would be, it is still comprehensible and justifies the use of both "very" and "itself". In my example, on the other hand, both "v
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0 I think you meant 01i00... 01b00that02b00 made these changes ...02i00 in both of those sentences.02br
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00 The 01i00itself02i00 insists on the idea of 01u01b00only02b00 the mechanism02u00 rather than something else associated with the mechanism.02br
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01. Of course I meant 01i01b00that02b00 made these changes..02i00. It is just a typing error and copied at that (cf. my first post on this subject above).02br
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002. It isn't a translation from German. The book is 01i00on02i00 Freud's psychoanalysis by an English speaking author (an Australian).02br

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0 01blockquote
00It isn't a translation from German.12blockquote
10Oops! 050010id1
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