kurome
What's the meaning of the second sentence? His foreign policy can be accused of being short- sighted and naïve. Un- American it was not. Thank you.
Nov 28, 2014 12:06 AM
Answers · 2
1
They are using a double negative here ('Un' and 'not'), so it means that they are saying that the foreign policy was American.
November 28, 2014
His foreign policy can be accused of being short- sighted and naïve. Un- American it was not. "short-sighted" means you're thinking or planning only for the immediate present, or the very near future (like tomorrow or next week, or next month), and you're not looking at the long-term consequences of your actions. (You're not looking "far" into the future). "naive" is hard to describe. It means . . . your level of understanding is not mature. "He never lived in a city before. So when he moved to New York, he walked on the streets alone late at night. He was naive as to the dangers of the city". Un-american = to have values that are contrary to values held by Americans. To me, when I read this sentence, I think that there was some group of people who were criticizing someone, maybe a president for his foreign policy, by calling it un-american. The author doesn't agree that the foreign policy was un-american, but does agree that the foreign policy deserves criticism, and that criticism is that the foreign policy was "short-sighted" and naive.
November 28, 2014
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