0
Anonymous Posted 20 years ago
Grammar
what's wrong with my approach?
Hi,
I was looking at my Collins Cobuild Compact English Learner's Dictionary for the word 'exeperience' and came upon a sentence given as an example and it is this:
Experience has taught me caution.
Now, let us concentrate on the word 'caution' if you will.
The definition I have when I look up the same dictionary is this:
Caution is great care taken in order to avoid danger.
If we plug in the definition to the first sentence, it seems it will look like this:
Experience has taught me great care taken in order to avoid danger.
As you can see, it makes little sense. What went wrong? How should I redirect my approach in reading somethings like definitions?
I was looking at my Collins Cobuild Compact English Learner's Dictionary for the word 'exeperience' and came upon a sentence given as an example and it is this:
Experience has taught me caution.
Now, let us concentrate on the word 'caution' if you will.
The definition I have when I look up the same dictionary is this:
Caution is great care taken in order to avoid danger.
If we plug in the definition to the first sentence, it seems it will look like this:
Experience has taught me great care taken in order to avoid danger.
As you can see, it makes little sense. What went wrong? How should I redirect my approach in reading somethings like definitions?
Top answer
Experience has taught me to take care to avoid danger. You just needed to make it a sensible sentence instead of forcing two unrelated definitions together in an unatural way.
- Experience has taught me to take care to avoid danger.
- You just needed to make it a sensible sentence instead of forcing two unrelated definitions together in an unatural way.
Get the Weekly English Kit 📬
New words, one handy idiom, and a 2-minute quiz — delivered to your inbox to keep your streak alive.
8 Answers
0
Experience has taught me to take care to avoid danger.
You just needed to make it a sensible sentence instead of forcing two unrelated definitions together in an unatural way.
You just needed to make it a sensible sentence instead of forcing two unrelated definitions together in an unatural way.
00
Thank you.
How would a person be forcing two unrelated definitions together in an unnatural way when the only definition the dictionary I have, which is Collins Cobuild Compact English Learner's Dictionary, gave that is sensible is "Caution is great care taken in order to avoid the danger"?
Definition 1: Experience: N-U Experience is used to refer to the past events, knowledge
How would a person be forcing two unrelated definitions together in an unnatural way when the only definition the dictionary I have, which is Collins Cobuild Compact English Learner's Dictionary, gave that is sensible is "Caution is great care taken in order to avoid the danger"?
Definition 1: Experience: N-U Experience is used to refer to the past events, knowledge
00
IMO:
You don't listen enough to the common usage. You're just trying to act rationally, but you don't listen to what happens with the real language, with the real speech of educated speakers or writers.
You don't listen enough to the common usage. You're just trying to act rationally, but you don't listen to what happens with the real language, with the real speech of educated speakers or writers.
00
Because those two definitions were not written with the purpose of being placed directly together. Use a dictionary, yes, but use the information rather than the precise wording. Language is not a jigsaw puzzle with a few fixed parts that slot together perfectly.
00
Put it this way: I created this sentence using the dictionary definitions of the words. Can you understand it? I wouldn't have a clue what this was talking about ...it just doesn't make sense even though these are the dictionary definitions.
"A pronoun used by a speaker or writer to refer to himself or herself past tense of go preposition or adverb indicating the direction, destination or
"A pronoun used by a speaker or writer to refer to himself or herself past tense of go preposition or adverb indicating the direction, destination or
00
Native speakers do not speak using definitions. Why do you expect the definition to fit in the sentence? What counts is whether the word, not its definition, fits in the sentence or not. I think we can agree on that.
00
Add sth a bit off the topic [<:o)]
In China, we have a similar expression among doctors- experience teaches people to be more careful-which means when you're a young doctor, you can handle with the cases quickly without much thought, but as time goes by, you'll tend to hesitate much more before you're sure your decision is the most appropriate. It's not uncommon to find some senior doc
In China, we have a similar expression among doctors- experience teaches people to be more careful-which means when you're a young doctor, you can handle with the cases quickly without much thought, but as time goes by, you'll tend to hesitate much more before you're sure your decision is the most appropriate. It's not uncommon to find some senior doc
00
Related Questions