You lazy bones/You're a lazy bones

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Tdol

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However, as long as you stick to your own ice-cream and don't even look at mine... :icecream::shock:

Is that pistachio with a hint of balsamic?
 

charliedeut

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Is that pistachio with a hint of balsamic?

You are asking me? :crazyeye: I did not choose the emoticons, so I'm not likely to know. ;-) However, if it b e pistachio, I might choose not to use it again, I don't like it at all :-(
 

konungursvia

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+1 for Pistachio gelato.

Back to the implied verb, I don't agree there necessarily is one. Think of the accusative case in Latin and Greek, which (sort of) lives on in our translations of the Classics... e.g. "O, Agamemnon!" or even "O, Canada".

To me, "you fool" is something we might compare to an accusative case of the noun 'fool' -- without a verb.

As for the initial question by the reader from HK, I'd explain it to my kid as follows.

In Cantonese, you can call somebody a 'cute' insult either with an accusative type noun, or with a complete sentence, interchangeably:

"Ham sap lo!" cf. "Lei hai ham sap lo!"
or
"Soo zai!" cf. "Lei hai soo zai!"

[Sorry, my keyboard can't type Chinese at the moment]
 

BobK

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.., if it b e pistachio, I might choose not to use it again, I don't like it at all :-(

I'm afraid you've been misled by si sea/si fuera. Even in the USA, where the subjunctive is much more widely used than it is here, I think most people would say 'If it's pistachio...'. In Br English it sounds either very formal, or hypercorrect or archaic. In fact, it's so archaic that it makes me think it collocates better with the (very archaic) alternative to 'if': 'an't be'! ;-)

Meanwhile, back on topic...

b
 

billmcd

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Hi teachers,

I heard some native speakers said something like "You hungry" in the moive, but I am not sure whether they were just saying "You're hungry".

Thanks.

Probably as a question. "You hungry/thirsty/tired/happy etc.?"

 

charliedeut

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I'm afraid you've been misled by si [STRIKE]sea[/STRIKE] fuese/si fuera. ;-)
I know not whether you were misled or just thy memory failed thee. ;-)
 
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