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Re: (In)flammable (WAS: Early Conlang Archives)

From:Dan Sulani <dnsulani@...>
Date:Friday, March 12, 1999, 15:17
John Cowan wrote:

> Dan Sulani wrote: > > > The situation is simplified in colloquial use: as a metaphor for anger, one > > uses "burn up" but not (to my knowledge, anyway) > > "burn down". As in: That really burns me up! (= that really makes me angry). > > But not *That really burns me down. > > I think because "burn down" is usually applied to buildings, and people are > not, metaphorically, buildings. >
True. But thinking about this further, it seems to me that the phrase "burn down" is applied to more than just buildings. I seem to recall being able to talk about burning down forests. I think the idea is more that the burned object is immovable and that "burn down" is short for "burn down to the ground". I think one can even talk of burning down a large wooden boat, if it was beached, but not if it was on the water. (Although, now that I think about it, you _can_ say that the boat [which was on the water] burned down to the water-line.) People are certainly not buildings, and generally not immobile (although my wife might debate that when she thinks I spend too much time in front of a computer screen! :-) ) Dan Sulani
> -- > John Cowan http://www.ccil.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org > You tollerday donsk? N. You tolkatiff scowegian? Nn. > You spigotty anglease? Nnn. You phonio saxo? Nnnn. > Clear all so! 'Tis a Jute.... (Finnegans Wake 16.5)
-- likehsna rtem zuv tikuhnuh auag inuvuz vaka'a. A word is an awesome thing.