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Sentence: he never learned anything in his life that did not come of use to him



 
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Noise vs Sound | Why some students unable to use grammatical structure in daily life?
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Sentence: he never learned anything in his life that did not come of use to him #1 (permalink) Thu Jul 02, 2009 18:35 pm   Sentence: he never learned anything in his life that did not come of use to him
 

They may be of a great deal of use. Father says we cannot learn too much while we are boys. He says he never learned any thing in his life that did not come of use to him at some time or other.

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I don't understand the exact meaning of the last sentence, especially the expression 'come of use to him'.

Thank you in advance.
Iwanna
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Joined: 15 Sep 2007
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Sentence: he never learned anything in his life that did not come of use to him #2 (permalink) Thu Jul 02, 2009 18:56 pm   Sentence: he never learned anything in his life that did not come of use to him
 

It means that of all the things he has learned, everything has eventually proven to be useful.

'That did not come of use to him' is another was of saying that eventually, after he learned about something, he found an occasion where that information was useful or helpful.

You've got two negative clauses that add up to a positive. 'he never learned anything' that 'did not come of use'. Thus, everything he learned was (eventually) useful.
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Skrej
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Sentence: he never learned anything in his life that did not come of use to him #3 (permalink) Sat Jul 04, 2009 17:40 pm   Sentence: he never learned anything in his life that did not come of use to him
 

I got it. Thank you Skrej
Iwanna
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Joined: 15 Sep 2007
Posts: 111

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