3 ms·
Your'e wrong. My point is there's no such thing as half a person or 1/6 of a person. The birth process might be half-way through, but that doesn't mean 1/2 a ma
by hasenj 16y ago
Your'e wrong. My point is there's no such thing as half a person or 1/6 of a person. The birth process might be half-way through, but that doesn't mean 1/2 a man (or a baby) is born. It means a baby is half way through in the birth process.
When you say half a person is born, "born" implies the birth process has finished and we ended up with half a baby. And that doesn't make any sense.
- hugh3 16y ago"Your'e wrong." Best contribution to the pedantry discussion so far. I contend that if a given baby is eighteen inches long, then in a period of time when three inches of that baby exits the appropriate orifice we have witnessed the birth of one sixth of a baby. Put six of those together and you have a whole baby.
- jodrellblank 16y agoIn that case, no people are born every moment. Every few moments dies a man, Every few moments one is born. But that's not the case, because born is present tense as well, not only past tense. "Babies are being born". Every few moments one is (being) born. Alternately, born is a variation of bearing - a woman carrying a child around is bearing it from A to B. Afterwards, it was born from A to B. In that sense as well the original wording makes sense, with a different meaning.
- hugh3 16y agoa woman carrying a child around is bearing it from A to B. Afterwards, it was born from A to B Surely that would be borne, not born.
- hasenj 16y agoWrong. 'born' is not in present tense. 'being born' is present because 'being' implies the present, not because born does. Same applies to 'being carried': 'carried' does not in any way imply the present. And, moment doesn't have to correspond to an SI time unit 'second'. And no, a poem doesn't have to be an accurate description of reality (if so it would hardly qualify as a poem). And my point is: stop trying to make it more accurate, because your attempts are futile; you're only destroying the poetic beauty without any gain to justify that.