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Chan-Seung Lee
Joined: 03 Dec 2005
Posts: 1032
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 Posted: Wed May 14, 2008 9:57 pm Post subject: scratch out |
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1.Scott's phonautograph consisted of a horn that was connected to a stylus. A sheet of paper was then blackened with smoke from an oil lamp. When sound was played through the horn, it would absorb the sound waves and cause the stylus to scratch out marks on the blackened paper.
2.Emmas name had been scratched out. |
I thought that 'to scratch out' means 'to remove something on the writing' such as #2 in the quote.
But I saw #1 in some newspaper. What does 'scratch out' in #1 mean if it's correct grammatically?
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Bob S.
Joined: 29 Apr 2004
Posts: 1767
Location: So. Cal
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| Posted: Thu May 15, 2008 12:49 pm Post subject: |
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You can use out as a helping adverb with some verbs of writing when you are writing something sequentially.
e.g.
Print out a sheet showing the stores in your area.
Write out a list of things you'd like for your birthday.
I typed out a list of all the people we will invite to the meeting.
In the given example, a stylus writes by scratching into a surface. On a phonautograph or phonograph, sound vibrations cause it to write (by scratching) the sound into a sheet of special paper or vinyl in a sequence. So you can use out as a helping verb in this case to say scratch out.
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"It is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood." -- Karl Popper |
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