Jennifer Saunders Fan Club

what little hair he had left on his head.

very nice sentence !

MurielB a écrit:

what little hair he had left on his head.

very nice sentence !

Yeeeessss
Why do you like this sentence Muriel?
I can see at least 3 tricky words for French people: "what", "little" & "left"... did you get them right?

Gérard "what little" is used to emphasize how small an amount is.  Before hair, it sounds very suggestive and funny  all the more so since the wind is blowing through it and very little is left.

gerardM a écrit:

MurielB a écrit:Gérard "what little" is used to emphasize how small an amount is.  Before hair, it sounds very suggestive and funny  all the more so since the wind is blowing through it and very little is left.

Sorry, I don't quite agree Muriel.

enjoying the wind blowing through what little hair he had left on his head.

For me "what little" is not used to emphasize... "what" is a normal pronoun.

Gérard I have searched on the internet
http://www.ldoceonline.com/dictionary/what-little

(also the little (that))POSSIBLE used to emphasize how small an amount there is, how small an amount is possible etc

Do you think the context is different ?

MurielB a écrit:

gerardM a écrit:

MurielB a écrit:Gérard "what little" is used to emphasize how small an amount is.  Before hair, it sounds very suggestive and funny  all the more so since the wind is blowing through it and very little is left.

Sorry, I don't quite agree Muriel.

enjoying the wind blowing through what little hair he had left on his head.

For me "what little" is not used to emphasize... "what" is a normal pronoun.

Gérard I have searched on the internet
http://www.ldoceonline.com/dictionary/what-little

(also the little (that))POSSIBLE used to emphasize how small an amount there is, how small an amount is possible etc

Do you think the context is different ?

Muriel, you're definitely right and I have to apologize for that: "what+adj" is commonly used, in a poetic style tho'.

Gérard i wouldn't have used the expression "me neither" so I searched on the internet

In colloquial spoken language some people use me neither in place of neither do I.

MurielB a écrit:Gérard i wouldn't have used the expression "me neither" so I searched on the internet

In colloquial spoken language some people use me neither in place of neither do I.

"Me neither" goes well with "Yup".
If you're speaking with Shakespeare, say "Neither do I"
If you're speaking with Theresa, say "Neither do I"
If you're speaking to Elizabeth in public, say "Neither do I"
If you're speaking to Liza in private, say "Me neither"
If you're speaking to friends, say "Me neither"
If you're speaking to Patrick, say "Moi non plus"

gerardM a écrit:

MurielB a écrit:Gérard i wouldn't have used the expression "me neither" so I searched on the internet

In colloquial spoken language some people use me neither in place of neither do I.

"Me neither" goes well with "Yup".
If you're speaking with Shakespeare, say "Neither do I"
If you're speaking with Theresa, say "Neither do I"
If you're speaking to Elizabeth in public, say "Neither do I"
If you're speaking to Liza in private, say "Me neither"
If you're speaking to friends, say "Me neither"
If you're speaking to Patrick, say "Moi non plus"

Tx Gérard it is true that Patrick understands better "Moi non plus"

MurielB a écrit:...
Tx Gérard it is true that Patrick understands better "Moi non plus"

I guess he'd rather like "moi aussi !"
How is his level of Esperanto?

Now that he has retired, he doesn't have the time for anything ! He has got to repair everything in the house and still helps around with his medical comptences.In Calais polyglot he now helps with the French table

gerardM a écrit:

There were four University sophomores taking chemistry and all of them had an A so far.
These four friends were so confident that the weekend before finals, they decided to visit some friends and have a big party.
They had a great time but, after all the hearty partying, they slept all day Sunday and didn't make it back to school until early Monday morning.
Rather than taking the final then, they decided that after the final they would explain to their professor why they missed it.
They said that they visited friends but on the way back they had a flat tire. As a result, they missed the final.
The professor agreed they could make up the final the next day.
The guys were excited and relieved.
They studied that night for the exam.
The next day the Professor placed them in separate rooms and gave them each the 100 point exam.
They quickly answered the first problem worth 5 points. Cool, they thought! Each one in separate rooms, thought this was going to be easy.
Then they turned the page.
On the second page was written... For 95 points: Which tire? ____

Very brilliant teacher !

A truck driver was heading down the highway when he saw a priest at the side of the road.
Feeling it was his duty, he stopped to give the priest a ride.
A short time later, he saw a lawyer with a briefcase on the side of the road and aimed his truck at him.
At the last second, he thought of the priest with him and realized he couldn't run over the lawyer, so he swerved, but he heard a thump anyway.
Looking back as he drove on, he didn't see anything.
He began to apologize for his behavior to the priest. "I'm sorry, Father. I barely missed that lawyer at the side of the road."
But the priest said, "Don't worry, son. I got him with my door."

The texts, the pictures that I re-publish here are less designed for a joke or a philosophic statement. They are designed for helping English learning.

When I read the text, I focus on grammar, vocabulary, culture, etc.
I'm reading the text, I ask myself: why? is it well in accordance with what I know, or is there anything unusual in the grammar? Is it similar to the French? Is what is transitive in French, also transitive in English? Is it word-to-word translation?
Meeting a confirmation is also important.

> A truck driver was heading down the highway
- "truck" - American vocabulary... Brits rather say "lorry"
- "Highway" - the meaning is not the same in British English (=main road) and in American (=US-freeway Br-motorway Fr-autoroute); as highway has got a meaning in both Br and Am, let's see which side (of the pond) the rest of the vocab is

> when he saw a priest at the side of the road
- "a priest" is the object (grammarwise), Okay it's well in the first position after the verb (as I could expect it)
- "at the side"... okay, in French we'd say "sur le côté", so I've to remember it's different, I have to find similar sentences to confirm; of course there's no logic in grammar but the French "sur" is a bit dodgy (except if we consider the road as the flat surface; "at" is better if the road is the kind of volume flat surface+air above where vehicles are driving

> he stopped to give the priest a ride
- okay, no surprise "stopped" doubles the p to keep the pronunciation
- give the priest a ride - that's interesting (but nor surprising). In English there's a key rule stating the direct object must be in the first position after the verb (ie nothing b/w the verb and its object - the French tend to insert the adverb there when they speak En); here the direct object is "a ride"... so here, the indirect object comes before the direct object: why? "give a ride to the priest" would be heavier. When people don't intentionally respect grammar, it's because they want to emphasize the indirect object... okay let me note this
This is an example of a double-transitive verb which is not rare in English.

> he saw a lawyer with a briefcase on the side of the road
"On the side" - aha, this time, we don't have "at the side" but "on": is there anything different in the structure of the sentence that needed the change? nope... so, "at the side" and "on the side of the road" may be equivalent... not rare to see, in En, several possible constructions; English people are not as strict as the French

>  aimed his truck at him
- I like the "aim"
- "at"... not "to" nor "toward"; okay, "aim" is often used with "for" or "at" to show the "target" (but for and at are not interchangeable)... see next point below
- "at" is the special preposition used (with several verbs) for aggressive actions (to throw at and to throw to don't have the same meaning)

> he thought of the priest
Note the preposition used with think: not the preposition the French tend to use!! "to think of someone/something

>  run over
Not "on"

> behavior
Definitely American

>  that lawyer at the side
- "that" is often used in place of "this" to show the driver doesn't like the lawyer much
- "at the side" - again "at"

> with my door."
Something I forgot to point out: note the period located inside the quotation (in French, the period would be outside: avec ma porte".)... not important but... a sign.

> When I read the text, I focus on grammar, vocabulary, culture, etc.
As you can see, I don't read the above text as a normal joke.
The above joke is an opportunity to learn English in a funnier way.
As you could see, I considered many points of the text. I could have stopped on oodles of others
- a cultural point of view: aha Americans don't like lawyers more than we do in France
- "to apologize for his behavior to the priest"
--- preposition "to", not "at"; "for" is the equivalent to the preposition the French use
--- note the for-part coming before the to-one: is it mandatory, is it usual, is it common? is it used to emphasize the "for-part"?... I'll have to remember next time I meet apologize
- etc.

Up to you but there is more that a joke... I'd say there are oodles of interesting points, there're lots of things to learn thru this simple text.