Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[fussy]

I would like to ask the meaning of the idiom "go wild", which appears in the sentence "Arik Levy and Patrick Jouin go wild dreaming up intricate furnishings that would otherwise be impossible to fabricate."

I've searched the Internet and only found "go wilding", "go out wilding" which may mean "go crazy" or "go mad" as my understanding. Is "go wild" same with "go wilding"? Is my understanding correct?

Thanks in advance!

[Lorikeet]

"Arik Levy and Patrick Jouin go wild dreaming up intricate furnishings that would otherwise be impossible to fabricate."

This means they "get carried away" or let themselves use all of their imagination to create the furnishings.

[fussy]

Thanks very much, Lorikeet.

The idiom "get carried away" puzzles me again

Anyway, I've found a definition for "get carried away": become too emotionally involved in something.

Yah, and now I see "get carried away" has same meaning with "let themselves use all of their imagination to create the furnishings."

But I am still confused about:

go wild = get carried away
go wilding = go on a rampage (http://www.answers.com/go%20wilding)

Are they different?

[redset]

Wild animals are animals which haven't been domesticated by humans - for example you might like to stroke someone's pet cat, but if you were walking in the mountains you probably wouldn't want to stroke a mountain lion! Wild things are untamed, uncontrolled, unpredictable (you can even say your hair is wild if you wake up and it's a mess). When you say someone's 'going wild' it means they're acting in that uncontrolled way, not caring as much about what people think - it can mean anything from someone actually behaving like a wild animal (kicking and biting, throwing objects around, screaming) to just having fun and being less conservative.

In this case the designers have been creating furnishing ideas and have really let their imaginations run wild - they're not restricting themselves to what's 'normal' or expected, they've gone a little crazy and had ideas that some people might find extreme. They're listening to their hearts and their instincts, instead of worrying about what people say.

'Getting carried away' is similar. If someone picks you up and carries you somewhere, you're literally getting carried away - you're either allowing someone to take you somewhere else or you can't do anything to stop them. When people use the phrase how Lorikeet did, it means something is exciting the person and causing them to not think logically - it's as though they're losing control and being carried away by something.

'Wilding' is a fairly new slang word as far as I know, and I'm not completely sure how it differs from 'wild' - I think it's usually used to tell someone they're acting in a crazy way, maybe implying they need to calm down. You're most likely to hear it around hip hop culture, it's not as common (or widely understood) as 'go wild'.

[fussy]

redset, thank you very much for clearing my confusion in much detail.

Now I think I completely understand the meaning and usage of "go wild".
It can be used to describe someone's mood and action that become uncontrolled, unpredictable by either inspiration, emotion, excitement or anger.

I am learning English by myself. But sometimes, and this time, I feel Englisht teachers are too essential to me. Thanks again.