Which expressions and why?

Originally Posted by hanan_eg

i think guess the meaning will show how imaginative the students are .. they will try to think of all the possible meanings ..

They might indeed.

Originally Posted by Roro

Good morning, Casiopea,

Now let those exams keep students' imagination stimulated...

What would be the problem with "deduce"?

Originally Posted by Roro

Some example sentences make you ponder indeed...

# I cannot understand why he is wearing his sweater inside-out.

# My brother returned home yesterday late at night completely devastated.

(.... what happened ...??)

Please correct me when my English is too strange.

Could you please compute the meaning of "devastated" there?

[Roro]

What would be the problem with "deduce" ?

Well, it would begin like this:

Holmes sat quietly for a long time, studying something in a glass bottle, showing his back to me. Suddenly he asked me, without looking back:
"So Watson, you are thinking about Mrs Hudson's dinner."
I was very surprised by his sudden question.
"How do you know that?" ...and so on.

[Roro]

Could you please compute the meaning of "devastated" there ?

Computer recognizes only the difference between 0 and 1 !

.................................................. ........................
..... but if you really want I'll give it a try at least as much as I can .......

[Casiopea]

Originally Posted by Roro

Computer recognizes only the difference between 0 and 1 !

.................................................. ........................
..... but if you really want I'll give it a try at least as much as I can .......

Wonderful, Roro. I'd have to agree. "compute" implies some type of computational device, like a computer or a calculator (hence the synonyms, compute : calculate, and the idiom, "Do you compute ~ understand?").

Originally Posted by Casiopea

Wonderful, Roro. I'd have to agree. "compute" implies some type of computational device, like a computer or a calculator (hence the synonyms, compute : calculate, and the idiom, "Do you compute ~ understand?").

Or an algorithm.

[rhapsomatrics]

I find myself,here,in a respectful disagreement to and with everything and everybody.The meaning(semantics) of words is not far-fetched--it can either be denotative(ordinary/dictionary) or connotative(contexual/figurative/derived etc)Therefore,it suffices to say that the denotative meaning of a word can simply,if not only,be DETERMINED since the meaning is almost steriotyped.However,the meaning of words that are connotatively used can be... inferred;deduced;figured out etc,particularly because some of such words could be polysemous(giving room for variant and divergent but accurate interpretations)