[lit-ideas] Doing Donal
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 9 Oct 2004 12:16:29 EDT
In a message dated 10/6/2004 8:00:54 PM Eastern Standard Time,
aamago@xxxxxxxxxxxxx writes:
I can see this on the level of someone who, say, might routinely perform
macho activities (bull fighting) when in fact he would prefer to be shopping
at
the mall for curtains. It can be argued here that this person is not macho,
but rather, is sensitive. The operative word here, of course, is "is"
rather than "performs" (or does). We can conceivably *be* sensitive without
doing
sensitive.
----
Good point. It's sad that the English language does not make the distinction
Amago is proposing it should.
Thus, we say, of Queen Elizabeth II that she _is_ a queen. Literally, we
should say that she _does_ queen -- or "a queen", if you must. In Italian, the
situation is complicated by the fact that they use "essere" and "stare", so
you can "stare" queen while not really "essere" queen. Geary knows about this.
Cheers,
JL
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