Timeline for What is the word meaning "going on and on for miles and miles"?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
10 events
when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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Mar 22, 2014 at 5:29 | comment | added | Kyle Strand | @Brian I didn't argue against it. | |
Mar 22, 2014 at 3:37 | comment | added | Brian J. Fink | @KyleStrand if you argue against it, it really doesn't make sense. | |
Mar 22, 2014 at 2:53 | comment | added | Kyle Strand | @Brian I can't tell what you're going to do with it, and I don't see why it makes any difference. My interpretation of literal stretching isn't due to a lack of "smarts"; it's because that's the interpretation that fits best with the sentence. | |
Mar 22, 2014 at 0:19 | comment | added | Brian J. Fink | @Kyle sometimes language is obviously figurative, if the plain sense doesn't make sense. I still think people are smart enough to recognize the difference. Besides, it's not as if I'm going to write this in a book or something. | |
Mar 22, 2014 at 0:11 | comment | added | Kyle Strand | @BrianJ.Fink Maaaaaaaaybe, but even that suggests a dream-like literal stretching of the road in the traveler's imagination (though not in reality)--which is perhaps what you want. But I'd suggest tobyink's answer of "unfold": seeming to unfold before him as it went. This can use some further refinement: for instance, the "as it went" is still a little odd; "as he went" would be clearer. | |
Mar 22, 2014 at 0:03 | comment | added | Brian J. Fink | @Kyle, seeming to extend before him as it went? | |
Mar 21, 2014 at 23:52 | comment | added | Kyle Strand | @BrianJ.Fink "Extending as it went" is non-idiomatic and semantically ambiguous. The most likely interpretation of that phrase would be that the road actually becomes longer as one is travelling along it, a la the train tracks at the end of the Wallace and Gromit short "The Wrong Trousers." (A fun image, but probably not what you meant.) As a reader I would be extremely unlikely to interpret the phrase metaphorically. | |
Mar 21, 2014 at 22:17 | vote | accept | Brian J. Fink | ||
Mar 21, 2014 at 22:15 | comment | added | Brian J. Fink | So, extending? I like it. I think that will work! | |
Mar 21, 2014 at 20:18 | history | answered | Drew | CC BY-SA 3.0 |