Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[Chan-Seung Lee]

[CP]

1. The verb to snack could be used to mean to eat a snack, but probably only if you don't specify what the person is eating. Otherwise, we snack on some sort of food, so in the quote, the person rightly says that the people snack on bushmeat as though it were beef jerky.

2. There are a lot of verb-particle constructions using up and out that change the meaning of the main verb. A former acquaintance of mine did her linguistics dissertation on the use of up and out to change the meanings of verbs. She had native English speakers describe differences in meaning between pairs of sentences, and she found that using up or out with the verb did carry with it a change in meaning. Some examples (not necessarily the same ones in her study):

They cleaned the dishes = they made the dishes clean
They cleaned up the dishes = they made all the dishes clean and tidy, and maybe even put them all neatly away

Don't eat the peanuts = don't eat any
Don't eat up the peanuts = don't eat all the peanuts

He washed the towel = he made it clean
He washed out the towel = he made it clean by actively scrubbing it

The difference in connotation between spice and spice up might be:

They use the meat to spice the stew = they put it in the stew
They use the meat to spice up the stew = they put it in the stew and it really makes a difference in the flavor
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