Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2016 July 22

= July 22 =

the damage was much greater than it was
What does "the damage was much greater than it was" mean here? Thank you. "Both sides made exaggerated claims: The Americans said the damage was much greater than it was and that none of the planes had been lost (not true). The Japanese said the Americans had targeted civilians (not true, but there were civilian casualties) and that several planes had been shot down (not true)." (from " 'Target Tokyo' brings a well-known WWII story back to life" by Tony Perry) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 222.128.180.11 (talk) 09:04, 22 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Here the phrase "much greater than" means "much more extensive than".  So the phrase can be paraphrased to mean

The Americans said the damage was much more extensive than it (actually) was


 * It may help the OP to note that "the Americans said" is part of the comparison - i.e. "what the Americans said the damage was" > "[the damage] [actually] was". --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 09:43, 22 July 2016 (UTC)
 * In other words, the Americans exaggerated the amount of damage, while the Japanese falsely claimed that the Americans went after civilians. This would have been simpler had the author included an additional "that", i.e. "The Americans said that the damage..."  Nyttend (talk) 13:37, 22 July 2016 (UTC)
 * I really don't see how the "that" helps. The ambiguity remains; you can still read it (if you're so inclined) as "the Americans advanced the proposition 'whatever the damage was, it was greater than that amount'".  I think this sentence is disambiguated by pragmatics rather than by systematic semantics corresponding to the syntax. --Trovatore (talk) 21:59, 26 July 2016 (UTC)
 * "I never said half the things I said." -- Yogi Berra.
 * ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 16:24, 22 July 2016 (UTC)


 * This look like a case of sloppy writing. The author leaves to the reader to guess the whole meaning of the sentence. I suppose he meant "the damage was much greater than it was [claimed]". Hofhof (talk) 13:18, 23 July 2016 (UTC)


 * It's a standard way to say it, not particularly sloppy. --69.159.9.219 (talk) 21:58, 28 July 2016 (UTC)
 * No, by itself it's not standard. Taken as written, with no context, it's a Yogiism. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 22:00, 28 July 2016 (UTC)

Alina
What does Alina mean. Some IPs are inserting un-sourced meanings. --Rainbow Archer (talk) 16:31, 22 July 2016 (UTC)
 * The greek word for light is either φως (phos, c.f. "photo") meaning "the bright stuff that lets you see" or ελαφρός (elaphros, c.f. "elevate") meaning "not heavy". I suppose the second definition may sound similar to Alina, but as far as I can find, there are no greek words meaning "light" terribly close to the name Alina, and unless we have a high quality etymology, we shouldn't make claims to origins based on tenuous sound similarities.  -- Jayron 32 19:49, 22 July 2016 (UTC)