 #2 (permalink) Fri May 05, 2006 23:51 pm ELLIPSIS, LATE and FULL |
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| Jes?s wrote: |
1.- "Ellipsis". Can I use Ellipsis when the sentence
is ironic. Imagine these two sentences:
a.- "I?m dying, dying... to live forever"
b.- A husband to his wife:
"You always come back home...late at night, of course!"
Is "..." called ellipsis here or not? |
Yes, I think so, though here it’s an ellipsis for effect, rather than to indicate an omission (I like to use it a lot myself). The ellipsis is also called suspension point, points of ellipsis or colloquially, dot-dot-dot.
| Jesus wrote: |
2.- "You always come back home late"
Can I use "come back late" to mean
He or She has been out all night long
and got home at 4 a.m,5 a.m and so on ? |
Yes, you can. But perhaps it would be better to say: "come back late at night". Although, if it’s that late, I would say: “You always come back (home) in the small hours/in the wee hours (of the morning)”.
| Jesus wrote: |
3.- If I say "The streets are full of people",
Does it mean "There are lots of people
on the street"? Besides,
Can I omit the definite article "THE"?
By the way, Is there another way to mean that?
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Yes to the first question. No to the second. Yes to the third -- you can say: “The streets are crowded”. |
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Conchita
Language Coach
Joined: 26 Dec 2005
Posts: 2826
Location: Madrid, Spain
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