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Chan-Seung Lee
Joined: 03 Dec 2005
Posts: 1032
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 Posted: Mon Jan 07, 2008 5:35 am Post subject: move |
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| When Capecchi became extremely malnourished from life on the streets, he was admitted to a hospital for orphans. There, he lived off of the meager piece of bread and a cup of coffee that was given to him each day. The hospital also took the clothes of the orphan children so they couldn't run away. However, it was a move that caused suffering for the starving orphans who already had trouble battling the cold on top of their hunger. |
From some newspaper I took the above quote. I have some questions in the quote.
Firstly, in the first bold part, I think that 'he lived off of the meager piece of bread' should be corrected to 'he lived off the meager piece of bread'.
Am I right?
Secondly, in the second bold part, what does 'a move' mean and with what words can 'a move' be replaced?
Third, what does the second bold part mean?
Thanks. |
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EnglishRaven
Joined: 04 Jan 2008
Posts: 71
Location: Changwon Korea and Melbourne Australia
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| Posted: Mon Jan 07, 2008 10:55 am Post subject: |
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To be honest, I'm not 100% sure about the first query (regarding "live off of + object" versus "live off + object"). Your correction seems right on paper, but in spoken English I hear "off of" a lot, especially from children. For example "Get off of the sofa!" My instinct is that "off of" is a little slang, but as I said - I can't be sure.
As for "move", in this context it can mean the same as "decision" or "action", and could be replaced by either for both meaning and grammatical/collocative accuracy.
Cheers,
- Jason
_________________
http://www.onlinEnglish.net
http://global-english.lefora.com |
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Lorikeet
Joined: 08 Oct 2005
Posts: 1877
Location: San Francisco
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| Posted: Tue Jan 08, 2008 6:06 pm Post subject: |
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"However, it was a move that caused suffering for the starving orphans who already had trouble battling the cold on top of their hunger."
The hospital took away the clothes of the orphans so they wouldn't run away. By doing this, they caused the starving orphans more suffering, because they were cold as well as hungry. |
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