Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[chinyang]

The sentence is - "It hurts to do something."

Which of the following is the correct meaning for the above sentence?
(1) Doing something will introduce a hurt.
(2) It will block doing something.


Thanks & Regards,
Chin-Yang Lin

[Jintii]

I am not sure I understand your question, but it hurts to do something means that doing something causes pain.

For example, I fell off my bicycle, and now it hurts to move my arm. That means that when I move my arm, I feel pain.

[chinyang]

Thanks for your reply. I still need your help.
In my current opinion, this could depend on the context.
In your example, "it" obviously represents "to move my arm".
Let me consider another example: Smoking too much is not good. It hurts to maintain your health.
In this case, "it" should indicate "smoking" instead of "to maintain your health". That means "smoking too much" would block maintaining health.

Please correct me if I get something wrong.
Thank you.

[KazAV]

To hurt to do something can also mean that it causes the person some considerable effort and not necessarily physical pain. For instance, it hurts to maintain your health. It doesn`t necessarily hurt physically (although is can and usually does) but it does cause you hurt in that it can be emotionally stressful and requires some effort on your part to stay healthy.

It in this case refers to the effort, not the smoking. In your original post, it hurts to do something would mean that it either hurts you physically or causes you some considerable effort to do something and may be unpleasant to do it.

[Jintii]

[Meadowlark]

Your question is difficult one to answer! I will try to help by adding a few thoughts of my own.

"Hurt" is typically used in a very DIRECT connection to that which is being affected. Whatever is being damaged, injured, harmed, or affected negatively is stated in a direct relationship with the word "hurt". As Jintii said, "Smoking hurts your health. " We say "Lack of study will hurt your grades" not "Lack of study will hurt the acheivement of good grades."

A model for the use of the word "hurt" might be "DESTRUCTIVE ACTION ---> (acts directly upon) ----> OBJECT OF THE ACTION."

When we want to say that something will "block" something else (as I understand the use of "block" in your example, please correct me if I'm wrong) we most often use words like hinder, interfere, preclude, prevent, or undermine.

For example: "Smoking will undermine your efforts to maintain good health." "Lack of study will prevent you from achieving good grades."

A model for this might be "DESTRUCTIVE ACTION ---> (is in opposition to) ----> PRODUCTIVE ACTION ---> (causing the productive action to have a diminished effect on) -----> OBJECT OF BOTH ACTIONS"

The use of the word "hurt" makes the inclusion of the description of any productive action unnecessary. We understand without being told that a destructive (or negative) action directed at an object is also destructive to any productive (or positive) action directed at the same object. So in that case we would use words to indicate a "hindering" of the pursuit of the positive.

Whew! This was even harder than I thought it would be! I hope I have helped you in some way. It makes me realize once again how difficult it can be to attempt to make sense of language!

Cheers!

[chinyang]

I appreciate everyone's help.
The answers from you really help.
Thank you very much.

[advoca]

The sentence is - "It hurts to do something."

May I throw in my two-pennorth. When you say it hurts like this it means you are suffering emotional pain.

I recently bought a house. I was not particularly fussed about making the purchase. I felt that the asking price was completely unrealistic given the going rate for houses at the time. The owner, some ten years earlier, had paid a very high price for the house and he was not happy when I pointed out that I could now buy a similar property for half what he was asking. He did not like to face the fact that property had fallen in price. He held out for a long time, but could not get a better offer than mine, so he eventually accepted. But he added in his acceptance letter, �I will accept your offer, but it hurts.�

He was suffering emotional pain.

It was a traditional joke in Britain for a schoolmaster to say to a boy he was caning as a punishment, �This will hurt ne more than it hurts you.� The boy would suffer physical hurt (i,e, pain) from the caning. The schoolmaster would suffer emotional pain because he did not like physically hurting the boy by caning him.