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To me, that means we are really close to achieving it So in this context far and close are synonyms? English is so weird.
by iamcurious 11y ago
To me, that means we are really close to achieving it
So in this context far and close are synonyms? English is so weird.
- ColinWright 11y agoThe point here is the question of what comes after far: * We are really, really far along the way * We are really, really far from our objective It seems clear that most native English speakers in this thread have seen the ambiguity and started by assuming the first option, whereas non-native English speakers seem to have assumed the second, and may not have noticed the other option at all. But see also: Contranym/contronym/Auto-antonym: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auto-antonym#Examples http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auto-antonym#Examples
- stygiansonic 11y agoI think this is a great example of the points illustrated in the article: Namely that interpretation of a {photo, sentence, whatever} depends on the history/background of the subject receiving the information and is one of the reasons why the field is "so far [away]". For example, a person who had no experience/knowledge of scales like that shown would have a tough time discerning what the reason for humour was.
- edpichler 11y agoThis is really good to read, once I'm not native and I consider my English not that good.
- roc 11y agoNot really. The problem is that "we're far" is ambiguous as to what we're far from. Are we really far from our origin? Or are we really far from the destination? In the absence of a complete statement, people tend to insert their own bias, which can lead to confusion.