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Phrasal verb: snap out



 
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ESL Forums | English Vocabulary, Grammar and Idioms
An unusual sentence | Which one is incorrect? (informed of)
Message Author
Phrasal verb: snap out Wed Apr 18, 2007 8:44 am  Phrasal verb: snap out		  
Hi,

Could you please help me get a better understanding for:

Quote:
Slenderly, languidly, their hands set lightly on their hips the two young women preceded us out onto a rosy-colored porch open toward the sunset where four candles flickered on the table in the diminished wind.
"Why CANDLES?" objected Daisy, frowning. She snapped them out with her fingers. "In two weeks it'll be the longest day in the year." She looked at us all radiantly. "Do you always watch for the longest day of the year and then miss it? I always watch for the longest day in the year and then miss it."

1. Does it suggest she put out the candles by 'nipping' the flames with her fingers or by blowing out the flames with her fingers (hands)?

Quote:
Sometimes she and Miss Baker talked at once, unobtrusively and with a bantering inconsequence that was never quite chatter, that was as cool as their white dresses and their impersonal eyes in the absence of all desire. They were here--and they accepted Tom and me, making only a polite pleasant effort to entertain or to be entertained. They knew that presently dinner would be over and a little later the evening too would be over and casually put away. It was sharply different from the West where an evening was hurried from phase to phase toward its close in a continually disappointed anticipation or else in sheer nervous dread of the moment itself.

2. I found this passage rather exquisite but I am not sure if the 'moment' just suggests the 'moment of time'. Is there any possibility it refers to the 'close of an evening' mentioned afore?

Thank you!

Haihao
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Phrasal verb: snap out Wed Apr 18, 2007 15:22 pm  Phrasal verb: snap out		  
.
1-- I am not quite sure how she managed to extinguish the flames, Haihao, but I seem to recall that one can actually snap one's fingers immediately adjacent to a candle flame, and the sudden tiny puff will blow it out. If not this, then another common method is to dampen one's finger and thumb slightly and then briskly pinch the wick.

2-- yes, 'the moment' is the close of the evening.
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An unusual sentence | Which one is incorrect? (informed of)
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