when he was so drawn

[keannu]

1. Do you happen to call "an old man" grandfather, who is not your real one? I don't think so, but Koreans do so.
2. When you see "when" in the middle of a sentence, do you interprete it in order or inversely? I mean do you interprete "The bus approached first, and then he was drawn" or the other way around? What is the difference between "When the bus was just ..., he was so drawn" and the original?

mo44)A young man sat alone on the bus and most of the time he looked out the window. He was in his mid-twenties. His dark blue shirt matched the color of his eyes. His hair was short and neat. Occasionally he would look away from the window and the anxiety on his young face touched the heart of the grandfatherly man sitting across the aisle. The bus was just approaching the outskirts of a small town when he was so drawn to the young man that he walked slowly across the aisle and asked permission to sit next to him.

 

[5jj]

1. Do you happen to call "an old man" grandfather, who is not your real one? I don't think so, but Koreans do so.

No. However, we can use the word 'grandfatherly' of a complete stranger,

2. When you see "when" in the middle of a sentence, do you interprete it in order or inversely?

If we were interested in the sequence, we would use 'before' or 'after, not'when', or different tenses. Here we assume that the two things happened at the same time.

 

[emsr2d2]

We sometimes take terms for relatives and attach them to people we are not related to, but usually it's limited to aunts and cousins, sometimes uncles. I have two friends who refer to a particular lady as "Auntie Jean" but they are not actually related in any way. The lady in question was the best friend of their respective mothers and was always around when my friends were children. They probably saw her more than they saw their actual aunts. At some point, probably their mother or Jean herself, started to refer to her as "Auntie Jean" because it has a nice, comforting, welcoming ring to it. The children picked up the phrase and the lady became "Auntie Jean" forever to them, even though there is no blood or marital relation at all.

Another friend refers to a lady she knows as her cousin. I once asked her how this person was her cousin but she looked confused and said "Oh, I suppose she's not really my cousin. She lived next door to me when I was a child and we were best friends all through school. For some reason, all my family refer to her as my cousin but she's not!"

I have never heard anyone referring to an old man as their grandfather if he is not, in fact, their grandfather.

 

[5jj]

I have never heard anyone referring to an old man as their grandfather if he is not, in fact, their grandfather.

It happens, though only in the context of a close relationship. The young son (who has no living grandparents) of a good friend of mine refers to me as his grandfather, and calls me the Czech equivalent of 'Granddad'. When he gets older, he will learn that I am not his real grandfather, but will probably continue to call me 'Granddad', though he will probably not refer to me as his grandfather.

Incidentally, My 'grandson' and his mothr are Czech, but I believe the same thing would have happened if they had been English. The name is a result of a family-type relationship, not of a respect for age.

 

[keannu]

Thanks a lot! Then, what is the difference between A and B? Just style difference or focus difference?

A. When the bus was just ..., he was so drawn...
B. The bus was just.....when he was so drawn...