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What’s the meaning of “split wide open”?? I’m confused and I found it in this sentence: “everything I knew was split wide open”

Source (UCLA magazine)
“The world cracked down the middle,” she wrote later in a preface to a special edition of the book, “and everything I knew was split wide open. ...

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  • I've added the source. Personally I can't see how you can have a problem with metaphoric split wide open if you didn't have a problem with exactly the same metaphoric reference as used to start this very sentence. What did you think the writer meant by saying the world cracked down the middle?
    – FumbleFingers
    Commented Nov 23, 2020 at 12:23

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If you split a rock or a log or a fruit open, you can see what is inside. enter image description here

If you split something wide open then the inside is revealed even more.

enter image description here

The author is using a metaphor. Probably it means that the knowledge the person had, was broken into fragments. What they had always believed to be reality turned out not to be true.

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  • They no longer knew what they thought had been true. What's that supposed to mean? In what relation does the NP what they thought had been true stand to the rest of the sentence; and is this, by the way, a good choice of a metaphor @Chasly-supports Monica?
    – user405662
    Commented Nov 23, 2020 at 12:09
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    @user405662 - Thanks for your comment. I had already rewritten the sentence when you commented. No, I don't think it is a particularly good metaphor.
    – chasly - supports Monica
    Commented Nov 23, 2020 at 12:12

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