shootingstar
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- Joined
- Nov 17, 2022
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(William, looking for the choir member Colin in the parks of Cambridge who is missing. The choir members are tramps of the City of Cambridge)
Instead of crossing Parker's Piece, he turns right down Mill Road, an area he never visited as a chorister. Martin calls it the guts of Cambridge, which William thinks might suit him better right now than the historic centre. A tattered tweed coat and a pair of shoes with flapping soles catch his eye. The vagrant is walking down a gravel path he's never noticed before. At a distance, he follows him into a graveyard full of wonky headstones covered in lichen, leaning into the earth at extreme angles. Tired, he sits on a bench against a wall.
'William?'
Colin looks different. Like himself, but turned up a few notches; cheekbones sharper, hair wilder. He slumps down the bench.
'I've been looking for you for days. Where've you been?'
'London.'
'How long for?'
'As long as it took me to beg my train fare back.'
(From A Terrible Kindness by Jo Browning Wroe, Part IV Midnight Choir, scene 54)
I've an issue with this sentence. Is "turned up" past simple or past participle of the phrasal verb "turn up"? I assume It's the past participle. But then, the clause has to be "but a few notches are turned up" in my opinion or, maybe, "but a few notches turned up". In the clause "but turned up a few notches" the word order seems to be upside down. In my opinion, "turned up" can't be past simple because the preceding sentence "Colin looks different" has present simple. Last but not least, what does "turned up" mean in this context?
Edit: Now I take "turned up" to be a contraction of "he has turned up": Like himself, but he has turned up a few notches (since he got missing) = but a few notches of his face have become more intense, right?
Instead of crossing Parker's Piece, he turns right down Mill Road, an area he never visited as a chorister. Martin calls it the guts of Cambridge, which William thinks might suit him better right now than the historic centre. A tattered tweed coat and a pair of shoes with flapping soles catch his eye. The vagrant is walking down a gravel path he's never noticed before. At a distance, he follows him into a graveyard full of wonky headstones covered in lichen, leaning into the earth at extreme angles. Tired, he sits on a bench against a wall.
'William?'
Colin looks different. Like himself, but turned up a few notches; cheekbones sharper, hair wilder. He slumps down the bench.
'I've been looking for you for days. Where've you been?'
'London.'
'How long for?'
'As long as it took me to beg my train fare back.'
(From A Terrible Kindness by Jo Browning Wroe, Part IV Midnight Choir, scene 54)
I've an issue with this sentence. Is "turned up" past simple or past participle of the phrasal verb "turn up"? I assume It's the past participle. But then, the clause has to be "but a few notches are turned up" in my opinion or, maybe, "but a few notches turned up". In the clause "but turned up a few notches" the word order seems to be upside down. In my opinion, "turned up" can't be past simple because the preceding sentence "Colin looks different" has present simple. Last but not least, what does "turned up" mean in this context?
Edit: Now I take "turned up" to be a contraction of "he has turned up": Like himself, but he has turned up a few notches (since he got missing) = but a few notches of his face have become more intense, right?
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