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B-Teacher
Joined: 09 Nov 2006
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 Posted: Sun Jan 27, 2008 7:03 pm Post subject: How would you define this? |
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One of my Korean friends came across this in a book and asked me what this meant:
"He wasn't smart for nothing. He put his big brain to work."
I'm not sure how to describe it. |
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The Hammer
Joined: 18 Jan 2003
Location: Ullungdo 37.5 N, 130.9 E, altitude : 223 m
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| Posted: Sun Jan 27, 2008 7:17 pm Post subject: Re: How would you define this? |
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| B-Teacher wrote: |
One of my Korean friends came across this in a book and asked me what this meant:
"He wasn't smart for nothing. He put his big brain to work."
I'm not sure how to describe it. |
He was smart.
He had a reason for being smart.
That reason was to use his brain to work, or to solve problems. |
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Ut videam
Joined: 07 Dec 2007
Location: Pocheon-si, Gyeonggi-do
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| Posted: Mon Jan 28, 2008 10:44 am Post subject: |
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"He had a reason for being smart" doesn't quite do it, I think. After all, putting his brain to work is the result of his intelligence, not the cause of it.
Rather, I think "He wasn't smart for nothing" is best expressed as "He wasn't smart to no end." In other words, his intelligence wasn't wasted; it was put to use, as the next sentence describes.
Consider a slightly different situation: an intelligent but lazy person who doesn't use his intellectual gifts. We could say of that person:
"All his intelligence was for naught. He didn't use his head."
or:
"He was smart for nothing. He didn't put his big brain to work." |
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