strike someone...

[IQU3838]

Hi there,

I don't understand the underlined part, could anyone help me out?

Thank you very much

Professor: Mr. John, you strike me as the kind of student on whom admission should not have been waste.

John: Then with all due respect, sir, you should be struck harder.

 

[Johnson_F]

This seems to me to be the sort of weak joke that appears only in old-fashioned teaching materials.

Prof: You strike me = You give me the impression that you are...
John: Then somebody should strike (=beat) you harder until you get the right impression.

 

[BobK]

Hi there,

I don't understand the underlined part, could anyone help me out?

Thank you very much

Professor: Mr. John, you strike me as the kind of student on whom admission should not have been waste.

John: Then with all due respect, sir, you should be struck harder.

It's a play on words (not, it strikes me, a very successful one). The prof. is using 'strikes me' (as I just did) in a metaphorical sense. It's not clear what John is trying to say, but the 'harder' (an adverb of manner usually reserved for physical effects) suggests that he is trying force some other interpretation of 'strikes'.

This sort of play on words (metaphorical usage contrasted with concrete one) worked better in Benjamin Franklin's famous "Yes, we must, indeed, all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately." (Benjamin Franklin - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia )

b