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0 pointspcrh11y ago0 comments

To clarify: what is it that you do not understand about the posted passage?

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omonra11y ago· 2 in thread

Honestly - I don't understand anything. Imagine you had an English text with half the words substituted with Dutch ones (that look similar but make no sense).

So you might think you understand 2-3 words in a row only to come across the fourth word that seems key for the line but means nothing to you in the given context.

pcrhOP11y ago

What makes it harder to understand is not the vocabulary, but the grammar, as well as Shakespeare's sometimes idiosyncratic use of word meaning. For example, "strain" here means a portion of music, which while not its most common meaning, is certainly within the abilities of most educated native speakers of English to understand, at least from context.

omonra11y ago

That's exactly what I mean - words that we otherwise know are used with completely different meaning, which renders the text unintelligible.

I disagree with you completely that 'most educated native speakers' can understand this. By the same token one can say that most native English speakers can solve differential equations :)

The definition of strain you mention is #30 in the dictionary - http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/strain. Can you cite its use in that meaning in a contemporary newspaper or magazine?

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