Skip to main content

Nuances of meaning

This previous post is one of my favorite David Sylvian songs and I was thinking about it's meaning. There are such subtle shadings in English, for example:

His world is suffering
Her world is suffering

Our world is suffering

They can all mean that THE world is suffering, mother earth physically suffering, but it can also mean that all he or she knows is suffering, that all of the world means suffering.

Likewise, in The Cure song, "The End of the World" Robert Smith sings:
‘I couldn't ever love you more’

Meaning I could not love you more than I do. It is impossible for me to love you more.

Later, he sings:
‘It’s not my fault, you couldn’t love me more’

Meaning isn’t it sad that you couldn’t love me more. You were incapable of loving me more, or as much as was needed. Of course, it is possible that she couldn’t love him more because it was impossible for her to love him more.

Also, in The Barenaked Ladies song, “Tonight is the Night I Fell Asleep at the Wheel” Steven Page sings:

‘You're the last thing that's on my mind’

Meaning at the beginning of the song, I wasn’t thinking of you.

But by the end (as he is dying—sorry all of these examples are such downers) it means that she is the last thing that he is thinking of as he dies.

So my question for all of my multi-lingual friends is what are the subtleties of other languages that hinge on inflection?

And for everyone, what are some other examples of these dual meanings.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Putting my money (read time) where my mouth is

Some Duran Duran with some songs that I believe prove their musical merit. eSnips gives me the power and I'm going to use it. ( Bwahaha ) Get this widget Share Track details This is one of my all time favorite songs. I have it on a B-Side Collection, although I can't find any mention of what it was B-Side of, just that it came out in 1988. The words are quite haunting, as is the melody. But, I can hear you say, this is not at all a standard D2 song. Well, no, but what is a standard song by any band? How do you average that? Thomas Dolby's singles were always abnormal compared to the rest of their respective albums. Same with Barenaked Ladies. I think the B-Sides are often truer to what the band wants to be without the pressure of the labels for commercial success. Get this widget Share Track details This is probably more like Duran Duran you're thinking of, right? It's from Pop Trash , released 2000. The words are based on the true story of a boy who was building ...
8 comments
Read more

KARAOKE

This is for Musing and B to take both of their minds off of other things. I happened to find it instead of what I was looking for (which was the 5Lives--they know what this means). Now, I'm not a fan of Karaoke, but I found this entertaining not because of the song, which is not a favorite of mine (more on that in a minute) but because it's written three different ways-- Romajii , Kana and English translation. I wish I could find more (perhaps of the songs I like more), but the irc seems to be dead. I did find this: http://www.karaokebox.org/ which is kind of fun, because you can sing with the artist, and then try it alone, but it doesn't tell you WHEN to sing, like a real karaoke version. Now, what I was saying about it not being my favorite got me thinking. L'Arc has 118 song by rough count--counting "My Heart Draws a Dream" due out next week, but not any of the remixes, Ectomorphed songs, D'Arc , P'Unk , live versions, Hydeless versions or the ...
7 comments
Read more

The Departed and some quick catch-ups

I threw out two trash bags of stuff today--projects I will never finish, even fabric I will never use, paper cranes. One of the best pieces of advice I ever received was that, "There will always be more fabric." There will always be more origami paper. This time I was smart, I did some projects FIRST and then reorganized and threw out after, instead of cleaning everything first and then running out of time and energy to do a project, resolving to do it tomorrow and not doing it until the sewing room needed cleaning again. Did my laundry, sewed a bodice to a skirt, made a shrug and cleaned my silver jewelry. Then tonight we watched The Departed . My God, what an awful film. It really was. I know it's gotten all this critical acclaim but I just thought it was a mess. The first half dragged on trying to lay on all kind of important inferences about Boston politics, race and class. It only became interesting at all when it started just stealing every scene from Infernal Affa...
6 comments
Read more