Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[leslie]

Hi,

I'd like to know if the following sentences (lyrics from Amanda Marshall) can be interpreted contrastly, namely, does it have semantic ambiguilty?

All along you were the one / All the time I never knew

1. Standing in the speaker's shoe, I thought all along you were the one, but I never realized that I was wrong. You were not the one for me. I just had a wrong impression that you loved me all along.

2. All along you were the one, you're there for me, but I didn't realize that you were the one for me.

Is it possible that both meanings exist, regardless of the context of Amanda Marshall's lyrics?

Thank you very mcuh for your help!

[lotus]

Hi Leslie,

Number 2 is a good interpretation. Number 1 is reading a lot into the sentence. Perhaps number 1 makes sense in context if you know the rest of the lyrics.


--lotus

[leslie]

Hi lotus,

Thank you for your answer. Do you mean that number 1 sentence is definitely wrong, if there's no other context but the sentence itself?

From the sentence "All along you were the one / All the time I never knew" itself, isn't there any possibility of interpretation 1 existing, completely viewed from semantic ambiguity, regardless of reading too much into it or how odd it will be?

Thank you once again.

Leslie

[lotus]

Hi Leslie,

When speaking of love, there can be many reasons for the way we feel. Any scenario or interpretation can be possible in this case. There is no wrong interpretation. But, if you make a specific inference, there should be a reason behind it. I guess that's one of the reasons why we say "love is strange!"


--lotus

[leslie]

Hi lotus,

I agree with you. Thank you for your help.

Leslie