 |
 | Home | Contact Us | FAQ | Search & Site Map | Link to Us |
 | Sign In | Join | Other 45 Sites in Network |
| HomeDiscussion GroupsEnglish UsageBritish EnglishESL Teaching Learnglish.com Contact UsLink To UsSearch & Site Map |
Discussion Groups / British English / November 2005Please explain this phrase
Hello, I'm a university student and need to work on some english text. I don't understand the meaning of the following phrase : "He was interested in his subject, as he by no means always was in the more fashionable ladies who were soon sitting to him by the score." Could anyone please explain this deeper ? Thanks, At 21:43:16 on Sun, 13 Nov 2005, pninja005 <pninja005@hotmail.com> wrote in <kFNdf.24438$Jl2.22394@biebel.telenet-ops.be>: >"He was interested in his subject, as he by no means always was in the more >fashionable ladies who were soon sitting to him by the score." It's always best to give more context than you have done, but I suspect that "he" was an artist, who was more interested in some (unnamed) subject for his painting than in the fashionable ladies who commissioned their portraits from him. ("Sitting" would be "sitting for a portrait".)  SignatureMolly Mockford They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety - Benjamin Franklin (My Reply-To address *is* valid, though may not remain so for ever.) > At 21:43:16 on Sun, 13 Nov 2005, pninja005 <pninja005@hotmail.com> > wrote in <kFNdf.24438$Jl2.22394@biebel.telenet-ops.be>: [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > commissioned their portraits from him. ("Sitting" would be "sitting > for a portrait".) You should have said that "a score" means "twenty", so "by the score" means "in large numbers" :-) SignatureJohn Briggs At 21:45:03 on Sun, 13 Nov 2005, John Briggs <john.briggs4@ntlworld.com> wrote in <ztOdf.811$TL4.24@newsfe1-win.ntli.net>: >> At 21:43:16 on Sun, 13 Nov 2005, pninja005 <pninja005@hotmail.com> >> wrote in <kFNdf.24438$Jl2.22394@biebel.telenet-ops.be>: [quoted text clipped - 11 lines] >You should have said that "a score" means "twenty", so "by the score" means >"in large numbers" :-) Ah, but no. This was a multi-talented "he", and as well as being an artist he was a composer. The ladies were sitting beside his unfinished musical manuscript :-) SignatureMolly Mockford They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety - Benjamin Franklin (My Reply-To address *is* valid, though may not remain so for ever.) "pninja005" <pninja005@hotmail.com> wrote... > Hello, > [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > > Could anyone please explain this deeper ? The most difficult part of this is "..., as he by no means always was ..." "By no means" is an uncommon way of expressing the negative, so the example phrase means "as he often wasn't". Therefore the sentence indicates that his interest in his subject was perhaps higher than usual. Matti > "He was interested in his subject, as he by no means always was in the more > fashionable ladies who were soon sitting to him by the score." Why does anyone write in this unnecessarily tangled fashion? I had to read the sentence several times to make sense of it, and I've been learing English for over 50 years. Paul Burke > Hello, > [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > the more fashionable ladies who were soon sitting to him by the > score." "...to him..." is wrong. If he is a protrait painter then it should be "for him" if not then "with/beside/by him" At 22:13:25 on Wed, 16 Nov 2005, John of Aix <j.murphy@libertysurf.fr> wrote in <437ba090$1$29204$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>: >> Hello, >> [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] >"...to him..." is wrong. If he is a protrait painter then it should be >"for him" if not then "with/beside/by him" Not so. The expression "to sit to" an artist used to be reasonably common. Look at the top Google hits at http://tinyurl.com/7b7t3. SignatureMolly Mockford They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety - Benjamin Franklin (My Reply-To address *is* valid, though may not remain so for ever.) > At 22:13:25 on Wed, 16 Nov 2005, John of Aix <j.murphy@libertysurf.fr> > wrote in <437ba090$1$29204$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>: [quoted text clipped - 14 lines] > Not so. The expression "to sit to" an artist used to be reasonably > common. Look at the top Google hits at http://tinyurl.com/7b7t3. Eh ben, I've never heard of it before. |
Reply to this Message |
 Sign In
 Join
 My Latest Posts My Monitored Threads My Blog My Photo Gallery My Profile My Homepage Start New Thread Enable EMail Alerts Rate this Thread
|
©2012 Advenet LLC Privacy Policy - Terms of Use
This website includes both content owned or controlled by Advenet as well as content owned or controlled by third parties.