New word – “ intimately “
- 2 Comments.
- Jun, 27, 2019
- By Alice Alice
- 口语提升的经验分享
I learned a new word -“intimately “from the Chapter 13 Of “The Third Ear” today.
Original sentence：
The way it has been described to me by a friend who has been intimately connected to Yiddish is that a schlemiel is a person who accidentally tips soup on someone else at a dinner table and the schlemozzle is the recipient of the schlemiel’s bumbling.
“intimately“ means “ knowledgeable (obtained through a lot of studying or experience)“.
I try to practice making up sentences:
1. John knew the city intimately.
2. She knew everyone intimately.
3. He is intimately familiar with the operation of this machine.
Chinese (Simplified)
English
Great work Alice. 1. and 3. are very good. 2. is good as well, and there’s an important cultural distinction to be made.
Actually, intimate in this context is used as a metaphor. The more direct meaning for intimate is “亲密”. So — in point 2. “She knew everyone intimately”, there is an ambiguity. 🙂 It CAN mean knowledgeable, obtained through study or experience. AND, it can ALSO mean 亲密。 🙂 So, if she knew everyone intimately, one can wonder, which meaning of “intimate” is intended?
Thanks for your advice:)
What I originally wanted to express is “She is very familiar with everyone”, but because “intimate” has also the meaning of “親密”, in order to avoid misunderstanding, I think it is better to use “familiar” instead.