welcoming to life

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keannu

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1.Is "welcoming to life" same as "welcoming life"? If not, what's the difference?
2.Does this "below 50 degrees" refer to "below minus 50 degrees Celcius" or "below 50 degrees Farenheit"? It it is the latter, my conversion result doesn't show so much low temperature, so I guess it's the former, then why was "minus" omitted?

gu135)At first sight, Mars does not appear very welcoming to life. It has very little oxygen and water, and the temperature at night is below 50 degrees...
 

riquecohen

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1.Is "welcoming to life" same as "welcoming life"? If not, what's the difference? They are not the same. In the excerpt below, "welcome life" would not make sense. I also feel that "conducive to life" would be a better choice than "welcoming to life."
2.Does this "below 50 degrees" refer to "below minus 50 degrees Celcius" or "below 50 degrees Farenheit"? It it is the latter, my conversion result doesn't show so much low temperature, so I guess it's the former, then why was "minus" omitted? You need to ask the author. This is totally ambiguous and it is impossible to discern what he or she meant.

gu135)At first sight, Mars does not appear very welcoming to life. It has very little oxygen and water, and the temperature at night is below 50 degrees...

Henry
 

SoothingDave

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It means less than 50 degrees. If it was talking about negative temperatures it would say "50 degrees below (zero)."

Whether they are talking degrees F or C or K or R is impossible to tell. If it was talking about earth and said something like "take a sweater, it's below 50 degrees outside," we could assume they meant degrees F.
 

keannu

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Thanks a lot! Don't you ever say "minus 50 degrees" instead of "50 degrees below zero"?
 

Rover_KE

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Yes, we do.
 

keannu

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Thanks a lot!. What exactly is the differene between "welcoming to life" and "welcoming life"?
 

Raymott

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It means less than 50 degrees. If it was talking about negative temperatures it would say "50 degrees below (zero)."
About 'meaning': I'd say this is a transcription problem, not the intended meaning. By itself, the text means what you say. But the text is wrong.
I'm assuming the text comes from here: ??????? E.V.P. | 09 ???? ??? - Daum ??
 

keannu

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You mean the original would have been "conducive to life" or "welcoming life"? I really appreciate your endeavor to find out the Korean website for the text, but I couldn't find out the original text.
 

Raymott

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You mean the original would have been "conducive to life" or "welcoming life"? I really appreciate your endeavor to find out the Korean website for the text, but I couldn't find out the original text.
I didn't look for the Korean site. I entered the sentence, and there were only three hits - probably another clue that it's a transcription error.
'welcoming to life' is correct; so is 'conducive to life'.
 

keannu

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Last question, why doesn't "welcome life" make sense?
 

Raymott

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Last question, why doesn't "welcome life" make sense?
"Mars does not appear very welcome life"? It's just not grammatical. Nor is "very welcoming life".
"Mars does not appear to welcome life" is OK grammatically.
"Mars does not appear to be a planet welcoming life" is also correct grammar.
 
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