It's not something you want your kids to have to walk past

[JACEK1]

Hello everyone!

I would like to ask about the meaning of the following sentence:

It's not something you want your kids to have to walk past.

It follows from the context that parents do not want their children to be forced to walk past a pub surrounded by smokers.

"Whether it's outside the office or the pub or restaurant we're all lepers and persona non grata now. Where I live you have all the undesirables standing outside a Wetherspoons pub, smoking and drinking. It's not something you want your kids to have to walk past. They'd be better off inside but that's the smoking ban for you."

Did I get it right?

Thank you.

 

[GoesStation]

Your understanding is correct.

 

[andrewg927]

Surrounded by smokers and drinkers.

 

[Tdol]

I think there's also a degree of snobbery there- Wetherspoons are pubs that sell very cheap beer in the UK, so the person is looking down on these customers in particular. They might not be so ready to call a bunch of bankers in the City smoking and drinking in suits outside a smart pub undesirables.

 

[emsr2d2]

It's interesting that in the first sentence the writer uses "... we're all lepers and persona non grata now", suggesting that the writer is a smoker. The rest of the piece sounds as if the writer does not consider himself/herself part of that group.

 

[GoesStation]

I read it as you have the "undesirables" standing outside.​ It looked to me like the writer had carelessly omitted the quotation marks.

 

[andrewg927]

Why do you need quotation marks for "undesirables"?

 

[GoesStation]

I read it as you have the "undesirables" standing outside.​ It looked to me like the writer had carelessly omitted the quotation marks.

Why do you need quotation marks for "undesirables"?

Because the speaker is quoting an unknown other speaker who considers the smokers undesirable.

 

[andrewg927]

Because the speaker is quoting an unknown other speaker who considers the smokers undesirable.

The sentence sounds more like the speaker thinks of those people as "undesirable". There is no sign of another speaker.

 

[Tdol]

Why do you need quotation marks for "undesirables"?

I read it without the quotation marks, which is why I detected some snobbery here. I think the person is a smoker, a leper, but not quite at the Wetherspoons level in his or her mind.