Hi everyone,
Are the following sentences correct?
-She was born in the early hours of the morning of 1st February 1953.
-She was born in the early hours of the morning on 1st February 1953.
-The early hours means: ‘early in the morning, soon after midnight’? Right?
-She was born late at night on 1st February 1953.
Thanks
Alexandro
It’s hard to tell what “early hours of the morning” means, because even though we say “3 o’clock in the morning”, we still think of morning as the time when or after the sun comes up. So when I read the sentences, I thought she was born around 7 a.m.
It would be clearer if you just said, “She was born in the early hours of February 1, 1953.” That sounds to me like 2 a.m. or 3 a.m. You could say the same thing by saying, “She was born in the wee hours of February 1, 1953.”
Thanks Jamie (K). I have still a few little things to ask you. You know the idiom ‘an early bird.’ An early bird is someone who gets up very early, takes a shower and gets dressed in order to have breakfast. But can you say: ‘Well, your an early bird this morning.’? (meaning you’re very surprised that your room mate is already up, let’s say at 7 o’clock in the morning, because usually he sleeps until 9 o’clock in the morning on other days. Is that possible?
By the way I also found this in the OAL: ‘We worked well into the small hours.’ As for my other sentences in my first message, wouldn’t it be simpler to say: ‘She was born at 2 a.m. or 3 a.m.’? In AOL I also found this sentence: ‘The fighting started in the early hours of Sunday morning.’ Then it mentioned ‘early hours of the morning’, meaning: ‘shortly or soon after midnight.’ However, your explanations seem much more natural.
Thanks Alexandro
You can say, “Well, you’re an early bird!” Not “your”, but “you’re”.
I have never heard anyone talk about something happening in “the small hours”. To me it sounds like foreigner English, but some native speaker somewhere may surprise me later. I have only heard “the wee hours” for that meaning.
“The wee hours” has three syllables. “2 a.m. or 3 a.m.” has seven syllables. Which do you think is simpler?
When I hear “the early hours of the morning”, it still sounds to me as if the sun has begun to come up.
Indeed, I am a BrE speaker, and “the small hours” sounds OK to me.
I told you some native speaker would surprise me! “The small hours” is very odd in the US, and we would (oddly) say “the wee hours”.
You hear “wee hours” in the UK too, but because “wee” is normally Scottish, I also associate “wee hours” with Scottish speakers. I’m not sure if others have the same perception.
i am a beginner at English.want to improve sense of tense and vocabulary power.How it possible?plz.give suggestion.
I agree.
I would add ‘small’ and here you have pure Scots, ho! ho!
“In the small hours” seems to be a fairly common expressions in the United States too according this document: In the small hours…[YSaerTTEW443543]
TOEIC listening, talks: Discussing a new office layout[YSaerTTEW443543]
Thank you all. Jamie(K), sorry for my spelling mistake.
Notice that a large number of the examples say “wee small hours”, not just “small hours”. Many of the examples are from science fiction, which is often written in an artificially pretentious style, and in this case could all be from the same author. The bottom example is from National Public Radio, where the speakers often make a special attempt to sound pretentious, usually by imitating what they think is British usage. I still maintain that most Americans don’t say “the small hours” and will be liable to misinterpret it.
I have found these two sentences in my on-line dictionaries
Isn’t “wee” redundant in #2?
I never say a “little bit” but “bit” only. Should I use “wee” together with “bit” in order to emphasise extreme need in such case or emphasise extreme smallness of something when even “bit” is not enough?
Thanks
Hi,
A ‘bit’ can be a part of something and as such can be a small or a big part. As a result there is nothing wrong with a ‘wee bit’ anymore than if you say: a huge bit.
Alan