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> “We did Prague.” “We did Barcelona.” Charitably, the word "did" implies a more active interaction with a place and its inhabitants than "visited". The latte
by munificent 4y ago
> “We did Prague.” “We did Barcelona.”
Charitably, the word "did" implies a more active interaction with a place and its inhabitants than "visited". The latter sounds like a tourist looking at a city like one might observe fish in a fish tank, where to "do" a place sounds like you're diving in and getting wet.
Saying "went to" conveys nothing about whether it was a destination or just a stop on the way.
"Do" doesn't have to be construed in the sense of consuming or aquisition. It's just a word and short old verbs in particularly have thousands of shades of meaning. I can do the laundry, my wife, a watercolor painting, my hair, a steak, and I assure you those are all quite different activities.
How an utterance is interpreted often reveals more about the listener than the speaker.
- thematrixturtle 4y agoUncharitably, "did" implies a box-ticking mindset: when you've "done" Barcelona, you've seen all that's worth seeing and can move onto the next. Even if all you actually did was eat tapas at some tourist trap on Las Ramblas and queue up for Sagrada Familia. One thing you realize about travel as you get older is that you cannot, in fact, "do" a place: the rustic fishing village on the beach in Thailand you went to 20 years ago is now a rat warren of concrete hotels and package tours that bears no resemblance to what you once saw and experienced, and what's more, your experience now is quite different if you have a wife and kids in tow.