On Tue, 16 Aug 2011 16:12:53 -0700 (PDT), rantingrick <rantingr...@gmail.com> wrote:
>On Aug 16, 4:55 pm, David Monaghan <monaghand.da...@gmail.com> wrote: >> On Tue, 16 Aug 2011 13:13:10 -0700 (PDT), rantingrick >> >> <rantingr...@gmail.com> wrote: >> >If conciseness is all you seek then perhaps you prefer the following? >> >> >ORIGINAL: "I used to wear wooden shoes" >> >CONCISE: "I wore wooden shoes" >> >ORIGINAL: "I have become used to wearing wooden shoes" >> >CONCISE: "I like wearing wooden shoes" >> >However as you can see much of the rich information is missing. >> >> Indeed. Neither of your two concise examples has the same meaning of the >> originals. > >Really? Are you sure? Yes. > ORIGINAL1: "I used to wear wooden shoes" There's an implicit corollary to this sentence: "...but I don't any more", which is missing from your concise sentence: >CONCISE_1a: "I wore wooden shoes" > ORIGINAL_2: "I have become used to wearing wooden shoes" This carries the meaning, "I wasn't always comfortable/accustomed to wearing wooden shoes, but I am now". This is a totally different meaning from: >CONCISE_2a: "I like wearing wooden shoes" which refers only to the present and is much more positive. In fact, now I consider it, these examples are so clearly different that you can't be a native English speaker. Either that, or I've just fed a troll. Damn. DaveM -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
