dolco
Is "I am thirsty to death " ungrammatical? I take you use "I'm bored to death", "I'm sick to death of~" quite a lot. But today I've found out that google results come out way less for "thirsty to death". I was able to find some sentences in google books or some other church-related web pages with "thirsty to the point of death", but the "thirsty to death" didn't seem to be the right one in most cases and were written apparently by non-native speakers. Do you not really say like "I'm thirsty to death"?
26 Thg 02 2019 20:32
Câu trả lời · 9
1
These two situations aren't analogous. In 'bored to death' and 'sick to death' the phrase isn't literal - when we say these things we aren't actually going to die. As such, these phrases have developed as colloquial phrases that make sense because speakers have given them meaning, not because they make sense grammatically. When you say 'thirsty to death' you are trying to say something literal which doesn't have the historial usage behind it and therefore you need to stick to the grammatical rules more closely in order for your sentence to make sense.
26 tháng 2 năm 2019
1
Hello, Dolco. No, "thirsty to death" is not a commonly used English expression, I've actually never heard it used before. You could say, "I'm dying of thirst." which would have the same meaning. I hope this helps!
26 tháng 2 năm 2019
Is "I am thirsty to death " ungrammatical? Dolco: Your sentence is perfectly grammatical. As you suspect from the counterexamples, the reason it’s wrong has nothing to do with grammar (or even semantics). For example, we do indeed say “starving to death” (both literally and hyperbolically), scared to death, etc.
26 tháng 2 năm 2019
@Cara Kramer Thank you so much!! :D
26 tháng 2 năm 2019
Actually, in the sentence "I'm bored to death" , bored is an adjective. (and yes, "sick" is also an adjective in "I'm sick to death")- they are each describing how "I" feel. There are many adjectives that cannot be used with "____to death". You'll just have to remember that "thirsty to death " is not something we say in English (even though "thirsty" is an adjective). Strangely, we do NOT say "I'm hungry to death"....but we do say "I'm starving to death".......Hmmm
26 tháng 2 năm 2019
Hiển thị thêm
Bạn vẫn không tìm thấy được các câu trả lời cho mình?
Hãy viết xuống các câu hỏi của bạn và để cho người bản xứ giúp bạn!