4

The chicken in the “chicken and egg” soba was so tough I swore that it had seen active service in the First World War. I was of course the only customer (well, it was gone 2pm).

Please give the exact meaning. It was written by a native English-speaker on his blog. What are other examples of such a usage of "gone"?

Improve this question

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
1

It means that it was after 2 pm - so there weren't many people around (they'd finished their lunches earlier). It is not particularly good English - rather colloquial.

Clearly, you could substitute almost any time and end up with an equivalent expression. You could have some other expressions such as "it was gone AWOL" (I went looking for the TV remote but it was gone AWOL - absent without leave).

Improve this answer
5
  • 1
    Yes it is a very woody word :) youtube.com/watch?v=-gwXJsWHupg
    – mplungjan
    Commented Apr 2, 2011 at 16:14
  • "it was gone AWOL" sounds ungrammatical to my British English ear, whereas "gone 2pm" sounds fine and not at all colloquial.
    – Francis Davey
    Commented Mar 30, 2021 at 19:38
  • Well, my British English ear doesn't find "gone AWOL" all that odd, @FrancisDavey, but I freely admit it has been corrupted by a quarter of a century living in a country where the language that's spoken isn't British English (they call it English; it isn't English English, that's all). It's all a bit subjective, of course.
    – Jonathan Leffler
    Commented Mar 30, 2021 at 22:46
  • "Gone AWOL" is fine "was gone AWOL" is what sounds odd. "He has gone AWOL" for instance, seems common enough.
    – Francis Davey
    Commented Mar 30, 2021 at 22:47
  • 1
    Hmmm; yes, fair enough, @FrancisDavey — "it's gone AWOL" (aka "it has gone AWOL") works better than "it was gone AWOL". I put the 'all that' qualifier on "all that odd" because it also didn't sound quite right either, a decade or so later. The answer was created in haste (5 minutes after the question was asked), so … funny things happen on the spur of the moment. I couldn't write (either then or now) that "In American English, gone is not used with that meaning" (as in the other answer) because my indoctrination into the subtleties of American English has not covered the point.
    – Jonathan Leffler
    Commented Mar 30, 2021 at 22:53
4

In British English, gone, when used with a time reference as in the sentence you reported, means past.

It's gone half past eleven.

In American English gone is not used with that meaning.

Improve this answer

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .