She guessed the answer on her first try.

[Maybo]

I found two sentences from the dictionary:

1. She guessed the answer on her first try. (She made the correct judgment.)
2. I guessed the total amount to be about £50,000. (Uncertain answer)

How do I know if "guess" means that someone finds out the answer successfully or just making a guess? Is it because #2 sentence uses "to be" so it indicates the amount is just a guess?
If I said "I guessed the total amount was about £50,000", does that sentence indicates I made the correct judgement about the amount?

 

[emsr2d2]

Sentence #1 is an unhelpful example. If it said "She guessed the correct answer on her first try", it would be useful. All we actually know is that on her first try, she made a guess. The sentence on its own does not tell us whether she got the answer right or wrong.

Without further information, the word "guess" on its own cannot tell us whether the guess was right or not.

 

[jutfrank]

How do I know if "guess" means that someone finds out the answer successfully or just making a guess?

The only way you can possibly know the meaning is from the context. I think the two sentences in post #1 are very good examples of that.

 

[SoothingDave]

"On her first try" tells me her guess was correct.

 

[5jj]

Sentence #1 is an unhelpful example. If it said "She guessed the correct answer on her first try", it would be useful. All we actually know is that on her first try, she made a guess. The sentence on its own does not tell us whether she got the answer right or wrong.

Without further information, the word "guess" on its own cannot tell us whether the guess was right or not.

I agree.

1. She guessed the answer on her first try.

These words could be followed by: Then she remembered the rule and gave the correct answer second time.

 

[Amigos4]

I agree.

1. She guessed the answer on her first try.

These word could be followed by: Then she remember the rule and gave the correct answer second time.

I see some typos in your response, 5jj. ;-)

 

[Amigos4]

I agree.

1. She guessed the answer on her first try.

These words could be followed by: Then she remembered the rule and gave the correct answer second time.

How about one more look, 5jj. ;-) '... answer second time.'

 

[5jj]

Looks OK to me in informal English.

 

[Amigos4]

Respectfully, I don't understand why '... gave the correct answer second time' is OK in informal English. Why doesn't 'second time' need to have an article before it?

 

[jutfrank]

Sentence #1 is an unhelpful example. If it said "She guessed the correct answer on her first try", it would be useful. All we actually know is that on her first try, she made a guess. The sentence on its own does not tell us whether she got the answer right or wrong.

I agree.

I'm very surprised you two would think so. I think the example sentence is excellent in that it says means very clearly that her guess was successful. With no context, the likelihood of interpreting otherwise is extremely low. I couldn't think of a better example, in fact.

 

[5jj]

I'm very surprised you two would think so.

I explained why. While guess can mean guess correctly, I don't think Maybo's sentence is a particularly good example of that, as I showed.

 

[emsr2d2]

I think the example sentence is excellent in that it says means very clearly that her guess was successful.

Nowhere in sentence #1 does it say that her guess was successful.

 

[jutfrank]

Nowhere in sentence #1 does it say that her guess was successful.

It absolutely does. That's the whole point of what I'm saying. That's why it's an ideal example.

Any context that might suggest otherwise would require considerable forcing. If you were to try to write a single non-contextualised example sentence, I don't think you could write a better one without stating explicitly that the guess was successful.

 

[emsr2d2]

1. She guessed the answer on her first try.

Nowhere in sentence #1 does it say that her guess was successful.

It absolutely does. That's the whole point of what I'm saying. That's why it's an ideal example.

I don't often plug away at these things because often they are just two people's subjective interpretations of a sentence but, jutfrank, please underline the part of sentence #1 that you claim clearly expresses that she guessed the right answer.

 

[jutfrank]

underline the part of sentence #1 that you claim clearly expresses that she guessed the right answer.

It's the compositional meaning of the sentence as a whole that is relevant here, but the adverbial phrase on her first try plays the instrumental role in contextualising the sense.

I think we might just be disagreeing on what it means to say that something means something. We're obviously interpreting the sentence in the same way—that she guessed correctly.

 

[emsr2d2]

It's the compositional meaning of the sentence as a whole that is relevant here, but the phrase on her first try does an awful lot of work in contextualising the sense.

I think we might just be disagreeing on what it means to say that something means something. We're obviously interpreting the sentence in the same way—that she guessed correctly.

We're not interpreting it in the same way. In my first response, I made it clear that it's ambiguous. She guessed. She might have got it right. She might have got it wrong. There is no way of telling.

 

[5jj]

The Oxford example sentences for guess in the meaning of 'Correctly conjecture or perceive: are

1. ‘she's guessed where we're going’

• 
  
  • 2. ‘We tend to assume that because we can guess the name of some very popular sites that the naming scheme works and makes sense.’
  • 3, ‘Instead of guessing the score, you recited your imaginary measurements!’
  • ‘4. They are there instead of plying their trade on the streets expecting to meet, you've guessed it, a foreigner.’
  • 5. ‘As you may have guessed by now I believe adoption is a good course of action for many teenage mums.’
  • 6. ‘I still haven't told my family, although I suspect they've already guessed.’
  • 7. ‘I am sure you can guess the verdict; jaw-dropping effects and cringeworthy dialogue.’
  • 8. ‘Yup, you guessed it, they wanted more information from me and I've had my telepathy switched off so I didn't know.’
  • 9. ‘It's time to take the casket out of the church, and you guessed it, it weighs a ton!’
  • 10. ‘It's easy to guess the inevitable response because people are genuinely predictable.’
  • 11. ‘The person who correctly guessed the number of balls in Sue's desk won a ticket to the final of the European Championship in Lisbon.’
  • 12. ‘Five of you managed to guess two numbers correctly, but alas nobody got three or more right.’
  • 13. ‘Only I know, but I'll give a part to whoever guesses the correct answer.’
  • 14. ‘Whoever guesses the correct code will win the necklace, which is 18 carat white gold and set with a 0.3-carat diamond.’
  • 15. ‘I just discovered that it is the perfect size for a bottle of… yes, you guessed it.’
  • 16. ‘We are then asked to guess her bra size from a number of options.’
  • 17. ‘Anyone who has ever watched romantic comedies can probably guess how the rest of this gem of a movie develops.’
  • 18. ‘She never imagined that anyone would guess that password but it seems they did.’
  • 19. ‘Instead they think of ways to get your data without randomly guessing the password.’
  • 20. ‘So now, even worms try to guess the passwords we keep on these machines.’
  
  

The words I have highlighted in four of those suggest that the speaker/writer did not automatically think of guess alone as meaning correctly conjecture.

The words you('ve) guessed it as used in the examples I have underlined almost certainly mean correctly conjecture, even though the person addressed may well not have conjectured anything.

In most of the other examples, this is probably the meaning, but we simply cannot be certain. The other reading is possible.

 

[SoothingDave]

In my understanding of the language, saying she "guessed the answer" means she was correct. If she guessed and was wrong, then she did not guess "the answer."

 

[jutfrank]

We're not interpreting it in the same way. In my first response, I made it clear that it's ambiguous. She guessed. She might have got it right. She might have got it wrong. There is no way of telling.

Okay. I couldn't disagree more, so let's leave it there. I don't think there's any more to say.

The words I have highlighted in four of those suggest that the speaker/writer did not automatically think of guess alone as meaning correctly conjecture.

Yes, I agree.

The words you('ve) guessed it as used in the examples I have underlined almost certainly mean correctly conjecture,

Yes, I quite agree.

even though the person addressed may well not have conjectured anything.

I think that since the expression You guessed it has a unique idiomatic use, it isn't quite comparable. Yes, it could well, and quick likely does, mean that the other person hasn't done any guessing at all.

In most of the other examples, this is probably the meaning, but we simply cannot be certain. The other reading is possible.

I agree that some of them are ambiguous. It seems that the only example that we disagree on is the sentence in the OP. I can't see how that one's ambiguous. In fact, I'm surprised you and emsr2d2 think it is. I guess we'll have to agree to disagree about that one.

Thank you both.

 

[emsr2d2]

In the following dialogue, would you assume she got them right?

Helen: How did you do on the test?
Jane: Well, I guessed all the answers.