Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[karikaririka]

Hello teachers.
When I was reading a book, I met expressions of which I couldn�t understand the meanings. In the book, a writer is selling his story to a motion-picture company. The president of the company was interested in the story, and offered a large sum of money to buy it.
After that he said �----Plus three points of the net, which of course is zilch, seeing how Gone With the Wind still hasn�t turned a profit. �

Gone With the Wind is one of the top grossing pictures of all time, isn�t it?
It seems to me that what he said is contrary to the fact. Do I not understand this line correctly? Or is there any fact which I don�t know?

[redset]

Your reading of the line is fine! That's exactly what he means, although I don't get why he said it either. Here are some guesses:

• The book is set several decades ago, before the film had actually turned a profit (remember, the gross is the money the film makes before all the costs are considered - the net profit is what's left after everything's paid for!)
  
• The president is joking in an ironic way - he says that Gone With the Wind hasn't made a profit, but he knows the writer is aware that it made a huge profit, and 3% of that would be a massive amount of money. So he's implying that the three points part of the deal could be worth a lot, and the 'zilch' part is a joke.
  
• The president is joking, but only exaggerating - by saying that the highest-grossing film of all time hasn't managed to turn a profit, he's making the point that even successful films don't make the studios much money.
  
• The president is a liar! He could be trying to convince the writer that the three points net part of the deal is worthless, so he will agree to a weaker deal.

I don't actually know how much profit GWTW has made, but after all this time it must have made a huge amount. If I were to take a guess at the meaning of your sentence, I'd go for the third explanation above - without any more context it makes the most sense to me.

[redset]

Oh by the way, there's a problem with your thread title! Grossing is a verb, very modifies adjectives; so the title should be:

'Gone With the Wind is a very high-grossing picture, isn't it?'

[karikaririka]

I'm sorry to say thank you. Your explanatin is very luicid. Your guess is a great help to me. And thank you for indicating an error of my thread title, too. It is just as you say.

[redset]

No problem! Just so you know though, 'I'm sorry to say' means 'I wish I didn't have to say it, but it's true' - it kind of sounds like grudging thanks, people might get offended


Hope you're enjoying the book! What is it anyway?