Apologies for the scarcity of posts; I've been moving house and we've been internetless and busy. Should be back to normal soon. In the meantime, have a brief observation on the subtle difference in meaning different syntactic structures can imply.
Reece Shearsmith tweeted this photograph yesterday:
'Please do not use: machine filled with BEES' |
If we have two words that are basically the same, you'll often find a subtle distinction in use, which is why we have the sense that filled with has more 'agency' (i.e. someone did it) than full of (which is just a state of affairs). Because filled can be the passive participle, we perhaps interpret this as meaning that the machine (has been) filled with BEES (by someone).
Anyhow, don't use the machine. It's got BEES in it.
Hi Laura!
ReplyDeleteI wanted to know if you have information about linguistic analysis on humour?
Thank you!