Civil War

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keannu

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1. "civil war" seems to be something where domestic people fight each other divided into two sides. What I wonder is "civil" means "of citizens, civilian", so does "civil war" come from the notion of "citizen's war"?
2. "in" in the future always means "exactly after some time from now on" not "within". But I can barely see "within" but "in". Do native speakers also mean "less then" some specific time as well as "after" when they say "in (some time)"? I mean if you say "in 5 minutes", technically it's "exactly 5 minutes after", but does it also imply "less than or after(<=5) minutes"?

pp53)Chicago Tribune once wrote that Henry Ford was an ignorant person. Ford put the Tribune on trial and challenged them to "prove it". During the trial, Ford was asked dozens of simple and general questions : "When was the Civil War?" "Name the presidents of the United States," and so on. Ford, who had little formal education, could answer very few. Finally, with anger, he said, "I don't know the answers to those questions, but I could find a man in five minutes who does....
 

5jj

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1. "civil war" seems to be something where domestic people fight each other divided into two sides. What I wonder is "civil" means "of citizens, civilian", so does "civil war" come from the notion of "citizen's war"?
Civil, meaning #3.
2. "in" in the future always means "[STRIKE]exactly[/STRIKE] after some time from now on" not "within". But I can barely see "within" but "in". Do native speakers also mean "less then" some specific time as well as "after" when they say "in (some time)"? I mean if you say "in 5 minutes", technically it's "[STRIKE]exactly [/STRIKE]5 minutes after", but does it also imply "less than or after(<=5) minutes"?
If someone says 'in five minutes, they mean 'in (roughly) five minutes'. They do not normally mean 'in between two and ten minutes'.
 
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