On Tuesday, the president personally announced in an interview on NBC’s “Today Show” that Iran would soon release Mr. Bauer and Mr. Fattal But within a day the Iranian state news media reported that the plum of their release was not Mr. Ahmadinejad’s to give away.
I failed to get the exact meaning of the bold part. Please paraphrase it for me.
I could find out that “plum” here is a good thing which they [the prisoners and the rest of people who will become happy hearing that news] expect it to happen, but I couldn’t make head or tail of the apostrophe s of Ahmadinejad. what’s that referring to? decision? verdict? …what?
Sounds pretty clear that Iran state news is saying that Ahmadinejad’s political powers do not extend to allowing prisoners of the state to be released. He has done it in the past so I believe he can do it again. Not everybody in America believes Obama has the power to do what he often does.
That’s why I got confused, if the hikers were to be freed then the existence of the plum would make sense and so the sentence. I mean, Yet there will be plum!
The issue, is that you can only give what you have. The center of the statement, is that Ahmadinejad does not have such power as to do what he promises. What he wants to give away, he does not possess, as a result, he cannot give it. Clear as mud, right? Maybe another example would help.
I told my brother he could have the kitchen table. My mother, angrily, said it was not mine to give away. She said to my brother, “You cannot have the table, I’m sorry that Hello Again said you could have it, but it was not Hello’s to give.”
See?
The table doesn’t belong to me = it was not mine to give = it was not Hello’s to give. No matter what I promise to my brother, it is meaningless because I do not have the thing I promised to him.
Here, there is someone who can achieve the release of the hostages, but that person is not Ahmadinejad. The “plum” does exist. It is not in his possession.
Further, I took it as a slap at him for trying to take credit. It would be as if Hello Mom was making the decision about the table, and right before she said Hello Bro would get it she made it clear that **Hello Again **had nothing to do with her decision. In this case, the table is the plum is the hikers.
The part of Ahmadinejad was played by Hello Again, Hello Mom played the part of whoever has the power to actually release the table/plum/hikers (Ayatollah?), and Hello Bro proudly represented the US and assorted Western powers.
I think most American English speakers, would have trouble with that one, Reza. It’s an odd way to phrase the concept. I think it’s probably a more common expression in Iran.
I agree. I think a lot of native speakers would be wondering what the heck this meant as well.
I’ve noticed a tendency of Indian and Middle Eastern non-native English speakers to have a very “flowery” way of putting things (flowery in this sentence means, “fancy, complicated, ornate”). I’m not sure if it is some artifact of the difference in languages, or the textbooks they have access to, but I don’t notice it, for example, with native Russian or other Slavic language speakers.
The smiley meant that I’d like to continue this discussion, and it was supposed to be a friendly gesture.
Well, you and Hello again are confirming my confusion over ’ that one’ , and that’s why I raised the question. But interestingly, read the first reply to my question which says it sound pretty clear what it means. Or maybe, I’m mistaken and the reply is made based on having a good background in news and politics, then guessing or reading between the lines wouldn’t be puzzling.
Anyway, what I realized is that this is not strange or unusual that I didn’t get the drift of the bold one in that piece of news.
BTW, the text comes from where you guess? [ NY Times ]
1 - I liked the word “flowery” in your text explaining about the writing style, when I looked it up. It’s interesting,
And that reminds me of one of my questions in the past which I didn’t find the answer . In Farsi we have a word meaning “Pen” in English as a tool for writing, but it has another meaning (literally) means the style of writing; the way someone writes, so we have sentences like, I’ve read his books, this is not his pen. or , Have you seen / read her pen? it’s so powerful and persuading. Or a Translator would say, I will translate one or two pages for you to see and read my pen, then if you liked it I would continue doing the rest.
My question is that what is the felicitous word or phrase meaning this “pen” (writing style) in English?
2- I’m asking you to do me a favor. I’ve written a page (about 30 lines, not a lengthy one) for the FAQ page of my little website, I wonder if I could send you the text as a message so that you review it for any inappropriate usages, or mistakes. This page is frequently visited by different people and It would be nice if the wording sound perfectly standard.
I don’t like to put it here, because I don’t want the contents be exposed to the internet search and be found by others. For some other reasons this is not a good or professional way. Apart from these things, it’s not my preference to ask it publicly.
I like that! In English, we’ll usually simply say “style”:
This is definitely not one of Reza’s books; I’ve read a lot of his work, and this is not his style.
I’ve also occasionally seen “voice”, but I think it’s still unusual enough that it would probably be in quotes, to make clear that we don’t mean someone’s actual voice:
I love Dorkness’s posts. She has a very intelligent and witty “voice”.
And if you’re interested in having several opinions on you FAQ, I’d be happy to look at it.
