I like the movie No Country for Old Men directed by the Coen brothers. That's the reason why I recently read the novel of the same name. As I'm not a native speaker, I chose the book translated in my mother tongue. And one paragraph in this book bothers me.
Some of the old time sheriffs never even wore a gun. A lotta folks find that hard to believe. Jim Scarborough'd never carried one; that's the younger Jim. Gaston Boykins wouldn't wear one up in Comanche County.
The same sentences appear in the movie intro. I watched this move when I was in the US. When I first heard these English sentences in a theater, I understand it as follows:
- There were more than one sheriff with the name Jim Scarborough. (Maybe a son is named after his father so that they have the same first name.)
- And the one who had never carried a gun was the younger one.
But the translated version explain this sentence as "Jim Scarborough had never carried a gun when he was young."
I know that this question may not have a definite answer because these sentences do not contain enough information on Jim Scarborough. But which explanation is more plausible?