Am I in your way?

English as a Second Language English Vocabulary, Grammar and Idioms
1

What do u mean by “am I in your way?”

its so difficult to guess the meaning

2

That is why god gave us dictionaries.

in someone’s way also, in the way. In a position to obstruct, hinder, or interfere with someone or something. For example, That truck is in our way, or You’re standing in the way; please move to one side. dictionary.reference.com/browse/in+one’s+way

3

Hi Milanya,

Is it ‘That is why god gave us dictionaries’ or ‘That is why god has given us dictionaries’ ?

Thank you

4

“Am I in you way?” = “Am I blocking your path?” - If a person is trying to walk past you.

5

The word ‘gave’ in Milanya’s sentence is simple past tense (indicative). It is definitely not subjunctive.

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[size=75]“Make your life a mission – not an intermission.” ~ Arnold H. Glasgow[/size]

6

But we don’t know exactly when he did it. Right?

7

Right, but that doesn’t make any difference. There is nothing that requires you to know or say precisely when something happened in order to use the simple past tense. You only need to know that it happened in the past.

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[size=75]“To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society.” ~ Theodore Roosevelt [/size]

8

Well I dare not say this but many people still don’t believe in angels, gods. In Asia, most of us worship Buddha(a real prince of India about more than 2500 years ago), the Indonesians have Mohammed prophet, the Europeans have Jesus Christ and many other Saints. However, what will happen if people no longer believe in such gods? English and some other language will have to change. Subjunctive mood will be used for sentences where gods…gods stand in. Anyway, not to mentions unreal things or people, tenses are always a big and confusing problem.

9

I seriously doubt that Milanya intended her sentence to be taken literally, VW.
Presenting God as the giver of dictionaries is what makes the comment tongue-in-cheek.

Her sentence was basically a tongue-in-cheek way of saying this:
“That’s what dictionaries are for.”
In other words, dictionaries were invented so that people would not have to guess about the meanings of words.

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[size=75]“Even on the most serious ballads, I’ll throw in a tongue-in-cheek remark.” ~ Brad Paisley [/size]