paraphrase sentence "sing of happy not sad - Carpenters

cftranslate · Post by **cftranslate** » Tue Oct 05, 2004 8:39 pm

Is it "sing of happines not dsadness OR

Sing in a happy, not sad mood??.

Shouldn't they say "Sing off happy not sad"??

Can anybody explain that use of happy and sad as adverbs??

Thanks

Sally Olsen · Post by **Sally Olsen** » Tue Oct 05, 2004 8:42 pm

"Sing" is a command here and they are asking you to sing about happy things and not sad topics. Wonderful song and Karen has such a great voice!

cftranslate · Post by **cftranslate** » Tue Oct 05, 2004 10:28 pm

Sometimes we foreigners get confused with language items obvious to native speakers. Answering my own question:

This is just a case of illipsis

The songs says:

Sing, sing a song,
Sing of good things, not bad (things),
Sing of happy (things), not bad (things)

The ellipted/obvious words in parenthesis.

So obvious...