What this sentence to mean

What does «this» mean in this sentence? [closed]

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English poet Robert Browning in his poem «Paracelsus» has written:

«Nay, autumn wins you best by this its mute appeal to sympathy for its decay»

Why is «its» preceded by «this»? If I parse it as if there is no «this» it makes total sense, but that just doesn’t seem correct. However, the original sentence also doesn’t seem grammatically correct to me. So why was «this» used in this context and what was it supposed to mean?

My best guess is that there should be a long dash after «this»:

«Autumn wins you best by this — it’s mute appeal. «,

but no source I could find gives this line with dash. Besides, English punctuation differs significantly from punctuation in my native language (Ukrainian), so my grammar sense might be tricking me.

2 Answers 2

The lines before the quote will help you understand:

Paracelsus: «More true to it: as Michal, some months hence, / Will say, «this autumn was a pleasant time,» / For some few sunny days; and overlook / Its bleak wind, hankering after pining leaves. / Autumn would fain be sunny; I would look / Liker my nature’s truth: and both are frail, / And both beloved, for all our frailty. / […] / Drop by drop! She [ = Autumn] is weeping like a child! / […] / Nay, autumn wins you best by this its mute appeal to sympathy for its decay» /

You will note that “its” refers to “Autumn’s”

Grammatically, «its mute appeal to sympathy for its decay» is not in apposition to «this».

«Nay, autumn wins you best by this its mute appeal to sympathy for its decay» is to be understood as

«Nay, autumn wins you best by that is its mute appeal to sympathy for its decay>»

“this that is” is not required but it is emphatic and can be understood as “this very thing that is”

I want to know what this sentence means

Sometimes it’s as simple as switching where and how you sit that can set the tone for the rest of your day.

A Simple action that how and where you sit can set the tone for the rest of your day.

As simple an action as swiching how and where you sit can set the tone for the rest of your day.

2 Answers 2

The idiomatic expression is: to be as [adjective: easy or simple] as + verbING + object

This idiom can be restated as: It is not more difficult than counting to ten or reading the book.

in the question: It is not more difficult than switching where and how you sit for you to set the tone for the rest of your day.

To set the tone is another idiom. It means: to have a quality that defines your day.

So, if you switch where you sit that is a simple solution to improving your entire day.

It is worth nothing that the original example sentence

Sometimes it’s as simple as switching where and how you sit that can set the tone for the rest of your day.

is grammatically incorrect. The two clauses «switching where and how you sit» and «that can set the tone for the rest of your day» do not combine properly in this construction. The sentence could be recast as

There are various other ways these ideas could be expressed. Since, judging by the source, the example is unrehearsed dialog, it is not too surprising that in forming a somewhat complicated sentence the speaker got slightly confused. However, a fluent speaker should have no problem understanding the intended meaning here, and there is no real ambiguity. Which only goes to show that strict grammatical correctness is not always vital to correct understanding, although it generally helps.

In short, the original sentence means that the tone for the remainder of the day can (sometimes) be set (or changed) by a simple action such as changing the choice of seat or changing how one sits. Note that the original did not say this would change the tone for the better, although that might well be how a listener takes it. The speaker suggests that simple actions can set a tone, for better or worse.

«While «as simple as» does mean «no more difficult than» it has a significantly different implication. «as simple as» emphasizes that the task or operation is very simple indeed. One might write:

To get Congress to agree on such a measure would be no more difficult than herding cats or building a stairway to the moon.

That does not imply that the task is simple, indeed it implies that it is so hard as to be impossible. If one wrote

To get Congress to agree on such a measure would be as simple as explaining the reasons for it.

the implications are very different indeed. That suggests that the task is easily achieved.

In the idiom «as simple as» «simple» conveys both «not hard» and «not complex». Some uses will emphasize one of these to a greater degree, some the other. Something can be «simple» in the sense of not being at all complex, but be very hard to achieve. One would not use «as simple as» to describe such a situation, unless perhaps the idiom is used in an ironic sense.

Solving the problem of global warming is as simple as building a perpetual motion machine.

Since it is theoretically impossible to build such a machine, this is not a truly «simple» solution.

What is this sentence trying to say?

The album is made up of more than just glittering good vibes. “About You,” a duet with Hann’s wife Carly Holt, is a moody highlight where Healy channels Morrissey’s elegant woe over a swelling instrumental that recalls U2’s “With or Without You.” “Human Too,” an R&B bloodletting in which Healy lays his frailties bare, features one of his most affecting vocal performances to date. On opener “The 1975,” the singer takes himself to task for “making an aesthetic out of not doing well and mining all the bits of you you think you can sell” atop dueling pianos that heavily recall LCD Soundsystem’s “All My Friends.” He pulls out his phone and sings a lyric that was ultimately cut from the track because it was too self-referential, even for him: “You owe James Murphy 20 percent of this song, your career, and the whole idea/Of living in the city with a tingle of fear.”

Hi, everyone. I need native speakers help. I’m trying to understand what the sentence in bold means. Does it mean that in the lyrics of the opener song, the singer criticizes himself for making the mood of the song out of being depressed and mining all the things of himself that he thinks can make his listeners feel sorry for him?

1 Answer 1

Yes, I think you almost got it right. The singer’s self-criticism here probably has to do with making money off of his own pain or his own soul. The idea of «mining» being that he is extracting his finite character, or creativity, or personhood, and selling it for cash. In the art and music industries this is often called «selling out.» I.e. becoming a tool of the corporate media companies, abandoning one’s original «pure» ideals in favor of cynically producing false emotion for cash.

It’s a complex and ironically self-referential idea, but one that is common in music. See the lyrics of «Have a Cigar» by Pink Floyd, or «Sell Out» by Reel Big Fish for similar ideas.

What does «which» mean in this sentence?

This sentence is from a transcript of a podcast:

The researchers say that even mammals that breed year round—which should offer protection against seasonal shifts—may still feel the impact of climate change.

I don’t understand what the word «which» means here. Does it refer to the «mammals»? If it does, I am confused by the whole sentence — what’s the connection between the middle part of the sentence and the rest?

3 Answers 3

The which in this sentence refers to breeding year round, not the mammals per se. In other words:

Breeding year round should protect mammals from seasonal shifts. However, despite this protection, these mammals may still feel the impact of climate change.

It refers to [the fact] that they breed year round. The word which can be used to refer to an entire sentence, to a specific noun phrase, to any other part of a sentence, or even to a concept that isn’t explicitly mentioned. Several other pronouns can do the same:

Christians refused to worship the Emperor. That was not to the liking of the Roman government.

Here that refers to the entire previous sentence.

It’s not grammatically correct, although since it’s from a verbal transcript I’m inclined to cut the speaker some slack. (I believe this is an example of a dangling modifier.)

«Which» refers back to the year-round breeding cycle of said mammals. It might be clearer if we move the object mammals to the other side of the parenthetical phrase:

The researchers say that even breeding year round—which should offer protection against seasonal shifts—may not protect mammals from the impact of climate change.

What is meant by this sentence?

I’m having a hard time making sense of the third sentence in this quote by Mike Judge (the film producer/writer/director):

It seems like there’s a lot of people who just do not understand satire. They think it’s weird. There’s people who just don’t understand you portray something or just explore a character, it means you’re condoning it, saying this is the way to live. It’s just so simple-minded.

The only thing I can think of is that he meant to say that when you portray something it doesn’t mean you condone it, but that would sound like the exact opposite of the sentence, so I am confused.

3 Answers 3

Mike Judge said:

«It seems like there’s a lot of people who just do not understand satire. They think it’s weird. There’s people who just don’t understand you portray something or just explore a character, it means you’re condoning it, saying this is the way to live. It’s just so simple-minded.»

«The only thing I can think of is that he meant to say that when you portray something it doesn’t mean you condone it.»

You are correct in your assessment: he’s trying to say that viewers mistakenly believe his satires condone the behaviors they depict, which is not his intention. He just said it very poorly.

This is obviously either a ‘live’ quote, or a written statement in a very casual register which did not call for formal precision.

Such utterances often read very strangely because they’re missing the prosodic cues and gestures which make them intelligible. To some extent, however, this can be overcome with judicious punctuation; this quote, for instance, could be repointed like this:

It seems like there’s a lot of people who just do not understand satire. They think it’s weird. There’s people who just don’t understand: you portray something or just explore a character, it means “You’re condoning it, saying this is the way to live.” It’s just so simple-minded.

The piece You’re condoning it, saying this is the way to live is obviously intended to echo the simple-minded response of people who don’t understand, to represent what your portrayal means to them—it’s obvious, that is, in speech, but easy to overlook in a perfunctory transcript.