A blue-jay can 'lay over' anything

Damkerng T.

Aug 2, 2015 04:08

0

Dictionary says 'lay over' means 'a short stop in a journey', 'stopover', but I don't understand this sentence translating 'lay over' as 'stopover'. Here is the sentence, which is from 'Baker's blue-jay yarn' by Mark Twain: And there's yet another thing; in the one little particular of sco...

A short by Mark Twain!

Anonymous

Great question!

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. But sometimes that requires memorizing which sort of metaphor is used with which words for which meaning.

Damkerng T.

A few minutes glance over the short gave me the idea that this "lay over" means "lay his words over".

Though I'm not really sure what Twain meant.

Anonymous

in English Language & Usage, Aug 22 '14 at 2:21, by RegDwigнt

@snailboat well, they should totally go explain why I am married on my wife but she's married behind me. I'm being honest here, it actually applies to myself and I am actually waiting for an explanation.

Damkerng T.

@snailboat Exactly!

Anonymous

Aug 2, 2015 04:10

That's about Russian.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Which unfortunately doesn't reduce the amount of memorization required

Damkerng T.

My advice (I'm a non-native speaker): Don't bother to ask why. Just keep aligning the words with their senses in your mind until their senses are natural to you. Give special care to the uses that surprise you (because they interfere with your first language). The concept of abstract vs. concrete nouns may be helpful. — Damkerng T. 21 hours ago

Anonymous

Because different languages use different metaphors.

Anonymous

Besides which, many function words are so polysemous it can be difficult to assign any particular meaning to them.

Anonymous

Of, for example, tends to be used when you want to relate a noun to another noun and don't have any more specific way that seems better to you at the moment.

Damkerng T.

Aug 2, 2015 04:12

@snailboat Yes. I plan to use the term "unit" or "item" instead of words and phrases.

I don't know if my guess of "lay over" correct. It makes sense to me to read/understand it that way.

@snailboat Come to think of it, I think that's exactly why prepositions are hrad.

Even though using the wrong prepositions wouldn't cause much trouble.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. I'm still trying to think of how to explain it.

Damkerng T.

How about "taking a dab at"?

Anonymous

Is that related to the Twain quote?

Damkerng T.

It's from a short by Twain.

eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/UBooks/WhaStu.shtml

Anonymous

What about it?

Anonymous

Aug 2, 2015 04:21

I don't see "taking a dab at" here

Damkerng T.

I didn't want to read about it, so I browsed over it, a bit here and there.

Anonymous

I'm just trying to understand 'How about "taking a dab at"'

Damkerng T.

> And there's yet another thing; in the one little particular of scolding - just good, clean, out-and-out scolding - a blue-jay can lay over anything, human or divine. Yes, sir, a jay is everything that a man is.

Anonymous

I actually read this blue jay thingy already

Damkerng T.

@snailboat For the bird's "lay over".

Oh!

Anonymous

Aug 2, 2015 04:22

@DamkerngT. I don't see the connection

Damkerng T.

Oh, hmm... what does it mean, then?

Anonymous

They're better at scolding than anyone or anything else

Damkerng T.

Oh, so "lay over" means scolding?

Anonymous

in the one little particular of scolding, a bluejay can lay over anything
→ a bluejay can lay over anything in the one little particular of scolding

Damkerng T.

This is my first thought:

14 mins ago, by Damkerng T.

A few minutes glance over the short gave me the idea that this "lay over" means "lay his words over".

Anonymous

Aug 2, 2015 04:24

I'm waiting to see someone else answer it :-)

Damkerng T.

@snailboat Oh, that sounds pretty much like a dab to me! (figuratively)

Anonymous

I don't understand the dab thing

Damkerng T.

Touching a subject briefly.

Though I didn't think of it as either a good or bad thing.

Or a good or bad angle.

If it was used to mean "scolding", it would be only about bad things or talking not nicely.

Anonymous

I'm still trying to think of how to put this

Anonymous

First

Anonymous

Aug 2, 2015 04:26

> You may call a jay a bird. Well, so he is, in a measure - because he's got feathers on him, and don't belong to no church, perhaps; but otherwise he is just as much a human as you be. And I'll tell you for why. A jay's gifts, and instincts, and feelings, and interests, cover the whole ground.

Anonymous

And in particular, they're good at swearing. And one particular little thing, scolding, they're especially good at.

Anonymous

That's how I understood it.

Damkerng T.

That passage made me not sure if Twain was really talking about the bird. :P

@snailboat I see. So maybe to be more specific, it may not be quite like "lay his words over", but "lay his scolding over".

Anonymous

Well, that's not how I understood it, but . . .

Anonymous

You can lay out your own interpretation if you'd like :-)

Anonymous

Aug 2, 2015 04:30

I haven't committed to an exact interpretation of lay over yet

Anonymous

As a spatial metaphor

Damkerng T.

What's challenging, I think, is that dictionaries define "lay over" in its own entries.

nods

Anonymous

He's not using lay over the way people tend to these days.

Catija

Well, whatever the answer is, it's not what the answer says.

Damkerng T.

The definitions seem to evoke similar visualization for me, but I think the way it's defined, it's too specific to be used to explain Twain's short.

Anonymous

Aug 2, 2015 04:32

So it's possible that the way I intuitively understand it today is different from what he had in mind when he wrote it in 1880.

Catija

"lay it on me" is a phrase used to mean "tell me the information".

Damkerng T.

@Catija Oh, we've got an answer now?

Anonymous

Yes, but I'm ignoring it :-)

Anonymous

By the way, when I search for academic papers about transitive adjectives, I find papers about transitive nouns! (All in languages other than English, of course.)

Damkerng T.

Huh! "transitive nouns"!

Catija

Aug 2, 2015 04:35

I mentally imagine a scolding mother who causes someone to bend backwards away from the loudness of the scolding... and the implication is that a jay can do this even to the divine because he cares not who is bearing the brunt of his words.

Damkerng T.

@Catija A-ha! The definitions in dictionaries for "lay on" seem to make sense for this "lay over"!

Anonymous

If you lay someone out, you're causing them to be sprawled across the ground (like with a punch)

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Yeah, like, I found a paper called Transitive Nominals in Old Avestan

Anonymous

Um.

Catija

@snailboat Yes. So if your scolding hits so hard, it's like a punch and causes them to be knocked out, that's a powerful punch.

Anonymous

Aug 2, 2015 04:38

If they need us to define scolding, then lay out seems like it might be a bit too difficult for them to focus on right now :-)

Anonymous

@Catija Yeah, I thought of something like that, too.

Anonymous

But I wasn't sure, to be honest.

Damkerng T.

@snailboat I guess so!

I don't know what we should do with the question (scolding), though.

"but that word from the sentence below, I guess, should be translated differently."

Anonymous

The OED's version seems more like the way I originally read it

Damkerng T.

It would be better if they added what they think it should be translated to.

@snailboat Oh! I don't have access to the OED website.

But I have downloaded OED1.

Anonymous

Aug 2, 2015 04:44

> 57.c. ? U.S. colloq. To excel, to ‘put in the shade’.

Anonymous

> 1876 Mark Twain Tramp Abr. (1880) I. ii. 19 In scolding . . . a blue-jay can lay over anything, human or divine.

Damkerng T.

Hah!

OED even quotes this line!

Anonymous

So the editors of the OED understood it the same way I did, suggesting that they were better at scolding than anyone or anything else, human or divine

Anonymous

In other ways jays are equal to humans, but they're especially good at swearing, and scolding, well, they're champions of scolding

Catija

They must be champions if the gods can't beat them. :)

Damkerng T.

Aug 2, 2015 04:46

That's completely different from my guess.

It feels good when we learn something new. Something surprising. :-)

Catija

Indeed. :)

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