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hiromichi
Joined: 12 Oct 2005
Posts: 1380
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 Posted: Tue Mar 11, 2014 4:57 pm Post subject: sand in the face |
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What does "merit in the sand" mean?
Does the lowly hyphen—that dinky half-dash, that barely-there conjoiner of words—deserve a whole essay? Is any punctuation mark less emblematic of power? If you were choosing teammates, you’d pick the hyphen last. A hyphen doesn’t even merit sand in the face; bullies simply ignore it, inflicting the ultimate humiliation: leaving it out.
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wanderkind
Joined: 04 Mar 2014
Posts: 32
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| Posted: Tue Mar 11, 2014 10:49 pm Post subject: Re: sand in the face |
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| hiromichi wrote: |
What does "merit sand in the face" mean?
Does the lowly hyphen—that dinky half-dash, that barely-there conjoiner of words—deserve a whole essay? Is any punctuation mark less emblematic of power? If you were choosing teammates, you’d pick the hyphen last. A hyphen doesn’t even merit sand in the face; bullies simply ignore it, inflicting the ultimate humiliation: leaving it out. |
Wow, this is really sophisticated stuff you're reading Hiromichi!
"Sand in the face" doesn't really have a unique meaning, the situation here is what is complex, and you need to look at the context. In the next part the writer mentions bullies. When children play in a sandbox, a bully might throw sand in someone's face, or put someone's face IN the sand. It's something mean a child bully in a sandbox would do.
("A stick in the eyes" or "Sand in the eyes" might be used to say a 'cheap shot', or 'sneaky attack' though)
"Merit", in verb form, means 'deserve' or 'be worthy of'.
SO:
| Quote: |
| A hyphen doesn’t even merit sand in the face; bullies simply ignore it, inflicting the ultimate humiliation: leaving it out |
-if a hyphen was a child near a bully, the bully thinks the hyphen is so insignificant that they don't even need to do any mean things to it, and actually ignoring it would make it feel bad by showing how insignificant the bully thinks the hyphen is
This is just a really fancy way of saying: hyphens are so useless people often forget or choose not to write them. |
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hiromichi
Joined: 12 Oct 2005
Posts: 1380
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| Posted: Tue Mar 11, 2014 11:03 pm Post subject: |
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wanderkind:
Thank you. Now I get it. A very humorous expression as is usual with this writer.
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