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04-Apr-2007, 03:32
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| | windy back road Hi, teachers,
I came across this sentence, "only in America can a billionair carry on like plain folks and get away with it, and the 67-year-old dicount king Sam Moore Walton still travels these windy back road in his 1979 Ford pickup."
I have consulted the English-Chinese book, and found it mean that the road is sinuate, but the short phrase is so hard to understand, because "windy" means "abounding in wind", "back" means something located or placed in the rear.
Could you pls help me to understand it?
Thanks and regards!
Ian | 
04-Apr-2007, 06:46
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| | Re: windy back road A back road is a minor road in the countryside, so they're probably full of bends and corners, not wind. | 
04-Apr-2007, 08:45
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| | Re: windy back road thanks, Tdol
"A back road" means the road is small and sinuate, the user express it with windy maybe means that wind often blow over the place.
Am I right?
Ian | 
04-Apr-2007, 11:36
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| | Re: windy back road Quote:
Originally Posted by wuwei thanks, Tdol
"A back road" means the road is small and sinuate, the user express it with windy maybe means that wind often blow over the place.
Am I right?
Ian | Could windy be pronounced [w aindi:], as in a road that winds? See pictures of a windy roads here and here.
All the best.  | 
04-Apr-2007, 17:05
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| | Re: windy back road Quote:
Originally Posted by Casiopea Could windy be pronounced [w aindi:], as in a road that winds? See pictures of a windy roads here and here.
All the best.  | Thanks, Casiopea for the pics. I felt carsick just looking at them!
Shouldn't the adjective be 'winding' as in 'The long and winding road'? | 
05-Apr-2007, 00:49
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| | Re: windy back road Thanks, both two,
I come to understand that 'windy' means the road is not straight.
Still wait for the answer "about winding".
R
Ian | 
05-Apr-2007, 01:18
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| | Re: windy back road windy • adjective following a winding course.
I think it's a fairly usual word to describe roads with lots of bends. | 
05-Apr-2007, 07:34
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| | Re: windy back road Hello Anglika, I know that it depends on the way you read the word 'windy' but it doesn't seem that usual, does it? windy - Definitions from Dictionary.com winding - Definitions from Dictionary.com
All the best-q | 
05-Apr-2007, 09:30
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| | Re: windy back road Depends on what you read - I've met it in poems, children's books, and instructions on how to go somewhere. Not everything appears on the net. | 
05-Apr-2007, 09:45
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| | Re: windy back road Quote:
Originally Posted by queenbu | I'm afraid so, queenbu. The difference is in the stressed vowel, /ɪ/ as opposed to /aɪ/. Adjectives ending in "y" often suggest childishness (for example, parents warning their children about talking to strangers will use the phrase 'nast y man'), so 'windy' meaning sinuous is perhaps less common than 'winding', and can have rather childish connotations, but it certainly exists - especially in the collocation 'windy road'. (A geography teacher might say to a young pupil 'What do you mean "wIndy"? Don't you mean sinuous? You should have left words like "wIndy' behind at primary school', but the pupil might easily - probably - use the word.)
Your first dictionary link doesn't address this sort of 'wIndy' at all.
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