to give (a) new life to something

[jutfrank]

"An inanimate piece of iron" confuses me. When we animate or reanimate something we, first of all, give life/breathe life into it. Of course, it can live independently, but only after that.

Yes, I understand what you mean. The context of (b) would be ideally suited for an uncountable use of give life with the sense that you mention.

I'm not sure what's confusing you, however. The writer certainly could very well have used life uncountably, but he/she didn't. The choice to use the word countably tells us something about how he/she was thinking.

But children or "children" (products) can start to live their own life only after their parents/creators, first, give life to/create them. However, (d) says, "You give a life to this individual, and then they have a life of their own." That's what confuses me.

Okay. Yes, that makes sense. I do agree that that's confusing. Don't expect people to always phrase their thoughts in a way that makes perfect sense.

But if "then" is of little importance, and the whole sentence means just "they live a life you give them", I get this.

Yes, that's right. We have to think about what people mean from the greater context of what they say. The idea of sentence (d) is a simple comparison of the logo and a child. The designer is the one who provided the logo with a life in the first place, and then the logo went on to lead an independent existence. You seem to have understood this correctly.

 

[Alexey86]

Thank you for your help, jutfrank! I have to say the reference/denotation of nouns that can be both countable and uncountable is the most difficult part of English for me. I understand it in general, but I'm always in doubt when it comes to particular sentences/contexts.

 

[Tarheel]

I would appreciate it if somebody would reply to this comment.

Patience is a virtue.

 

[Alexey86]

I would appreciate it if somebody would reply to this comment.

At first, I wanted to write this way, but I was in doubt and read a couple of threads about that, and decided to use just "replied". If it's incorrect, I'll start a new thread.

 

[Tarheel]

Past tense doesn't work there. You are saying you would appreciate something somebody has already done.

 

[Tarheel]

If it's incorrect, I'll start a new thread.

If you're satisfied with the answers you have received here, fine. Otherwise, of course, you don't have to.

 

[Alexey86]

I decided to use a more concise version after I had found this thread about "would appreciate it if...would take/took" (https://forum.wordreference.com/threads/i-would-appreciate-it-if-you-did-would-do.3225287/) in which the first reply was, "The two sentences are very similar in meaning...the actions of both "took" and "would take" are in the future; but the sequence of tense rules for conditional sentences demand the past form."