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Newguest Posted 15 years ago
Vocabulary

They yet are passive

Hi

An author of a book writes how thinking influences our lives. He says:

The world may be divided into two classes of people: (1) those who

overcome life, and (2) those who are overcome by life. Those who

overcome life's difficulties are those who do so in thought. Those who

are overcome by life's difficulties, are those who do not overcome in

thought. If the latter have not deliberately made a practice of "dodging"

unpleasant thoughts in an unfortunate attempt to follow a form of wrong

thinking which they erroneously believed to be right-thinking, they yet

are passive; that is, they fail to overcome, in thought, the difficulty that

must be overcome, sooner or later, in actual experience.

I'd like to ask about "they yet are passive".

Does "yet" in the example above mean the same as "yet" in this example: "not yet"?

And does this phrase sound correct to you here? To me it sounds awkward, but maybe it's just me.
  

Top answer

Hi, Newguest. "Yet" means "still" here. They do X to avoid being Y, but they fail.

  • Hi, Newguest.
  • "Yet" means "still" here.
  • They do X to avoid being Y, but they fail.
  • They think they are being pro-active, but they are still/yet passive.
  • com/dictionary/yet See adv.
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4 Answers
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Hi, Newguest.

"Yet" means "still" here.

They do X to avoid being Y, but they fail.

They think they are being pro-active, but they are still/yet passive. (They continue to be passive.)

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/yet

See adv. 2 b
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Hi Avangi. Thanks for the answer.

But don't you think that the construction of this sentence is bad. Why did the author put "if" at the beginning of that sentence?

I would write it like this:

The 2nd group of people deliberately makes a practice of "dodging" unpleasant thoughts following a form of wrong thinking which they erroneosuly believe is right-thinking. Unfortuna
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NewguestIf the latter have not deliberately made a practice of "dodging" unpleasant thoughts in an unfortunate attempt to follow a form of wrong thinking which they erroneously believed to be right-thinking, they yet
are passive;
The paragraph is not well written, in my opinion.
I agree that there's a logi

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