Re: The cost of time
| From: | Arnt Richard Johansen <arntrich@...> |
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| Date: | Monday, February 11, 2002, 17:24 |
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On Sun, 10 Feb 2002, William Annis wrote:
> In English one "spends" time. Sometimes you pass time.
>
> [...]
>
> How do other languages handle this idea? I'm thinking mostly about
> natlangs, but conlangs that have avoided the monetary associations
> would be interesting to me, too.
AFAIK, Norwegian (my native language) has no 'spend' as a separate
concept. We say "bruke" both in sentences such as "å bruke en hammer"
('to use a hammer'), and "å bruke penger" ('to use (=spend) money'). As
for time, both "å bruke tid" and "å tilbringe tid" are possible.
"Tilbringe" seems to be similar in meaning to German "verbringen"
mentioned by Philip Newton upthread.
One can throw away one's time in Norwegian, just as in English. As for
passing time, we have a funny idiom: "å slå ihjel tiden" ('to beat time to
death'). While the former connotes that one is spending a limited amount
of time unwisely, the latter indicates that one has a surplus of time that
one has to do away with.
-arj
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