Timeline for Why would Marlow have "abused the old church at home for not being a cathedral"?
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13 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Jul 15, 2020 at 4:45 | vote | accept | TomDot Com | ||
| Jul 15, 2020 at 1:12 | comment | added | Yasskier | @TomDotCom Language changes over years, Jospeh Conrad wrote those words over 100 years ago. But I do agree with the answer: the "As soon as" fragment states that both actions are equally (im)probable and equally pointless. | |
| Jul 14, 2020 at 20:39 | vote | accept | TomDot Com | ||
| Jul 14, 2020 at 20:39 | |||||
| Jul 14, 2020 at 8:34 | comment | added | TomDot Com | @ Rand al'Thor In my research I'm receiving conflicted answers, as from this thread on English SE english.stackexchange.com/questions/13796/… , according to the 14-upvoted answer, "as" can be used to seperate two actions and effectively mean preference for the first over the second. Also with regards to "just as soon than", I don't know where you read that, I don't think I provided any examples with that phrasing. | |
| Jul 14, 2020 at 8:21 | comment | added | Rand al'Thor♦ | @TomDotCom "just as soon than" isn't a phrase: it's either "just as soon as" or "sooner than". In this case we have "just as soon" so the implied extra word is "as". | |
| Jul 14, 2020 at 8:13 | comment | added | TomDot Com | @ Rand al'Thor So how is it known that it would be an implicit "as" rather than an implicit "than". Because from the definition of "I would just as" from Cambridge dictionary dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/would-just-as-soon lists an example that includes "than" explicitly("I would sooner have you hate me for telling you the truth than adore me for telling you lies."). Is it the case that when not stated, that it is assumed to be an impliict "as"? Sorry this is probably now a question for English SE. | |
| Jul 14, 2020 at 8:07 | history | edited | Mithical♦ | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Jul 14, 2020 at 8:06 | comment | added | Rand al'Thor♦ | @TomDotCom This answer is right, but it's a bit of a tricky use of language. Remember the implicit second "as": the full sentence would be "I would just as soon [berate the church] as [berate the ship]". When you see the phrase "as [...] as", it normally denotes equality between two things - they are as big as each other, as fast as each other, as soon as each other - not putting one of them above the other. | |
| Jul 14, 2020 at 7:42 | comment | added | TomDot Com | @ Mithical Using your definitions of X and Y, Marlow initially states, he would not Y. He then states that he would have preferred to X, for being [something], than Y. So then the probability of Y does not matter, as he states that he would rather X than Y, essentially. Of course he doesn't say [than Y] in the last sentence, but because he's using "I would just as" I inferred he would be relating to Y. | |
| Jul 14, 2020 at 7:30 | history | edited | Mithical♦ | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Jul 14, 2020 at 7:21 | comment | added | Mithical♦ | @TomDotCom - it means "I am equally likely to do X as to do Y". In this case, X is "berate the church" and Y is "berate the ship". He is equally likely to berate the church as he is to berate the ship. Since he has already stated that the likelihood of him berating the ship is none, we can conclude that the likelihood of him berating the ship is equal to that - also none. | |
| Jul 14, 2020 at 7:10 | comment | added | TomDot Com | I stlil don't understand how "I would just as.. " means that he wouldn't grumble at the church as the definition of "I would just as" from Macmillan dictionary is: "used for saying what you would prefer to do" macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/british/… How does it mean the opposite in this circumstance? | |
| Jul 14, 2020 at 7:01 | history | answered | Mithical♦ | CC BY-SA 4.0 |