Wound
I'm reading a book in which I've come across the sentence "He was wounding". Is it the same as to say "he was suffering'.
16 Answers
Natasha, I don't say that Jane Austen considered upper class to have a negative nuance, I say that nowadays it has.
I didn't say I had any problem with ninteenth century literature, I only say I find expressions, constructions and words that I don't find in nowadays English.
It was the first example that got me confused, but if we take "consequence" as the object the constructions is quite clear. Maybe a closest examination should have me spared this post. The problem is that I don't have time to stop in every sentence to analyze it.
Dunia said:
Heidita,For me upper class and posh have a negative nuance, and I didn't mean to put it that way. For me elevated is very educated, sofisticated, civilized but in a positive sense, higher than meainstream.
Well, I have a hard time believing that Jane Austen would have considered "upper class" to have a negative connotation . . . but you never know about those Brits (wink)
By the way, kudos to any non-native speaker attempting this book. Native speakers often find the language tricky!!
Amen to that. I haven't read Pride and Prejudice, but I got ambitious once and read Emma. Jane Austen's subtilty and sophistication can definitely make the going difficult. ¡Dunia domina el inglés si puede leer esto!
Valerie said:
Well, the other one turned out to be pretty straightforward: ...for the sake of giving relief to my own feelings, care not how much I may be wounding your's [sic]...
Feelings are being wounded, or hurt. Probably it was the first example that confused Dunia.
Nice work!. As you pointed out, the "your's" might to undermine ones confidence in the editors. In any event, both cases involve the use of wounding as a transitive verb and in the first one (once it is possible to see the whole sentence) the sense of "wounding" is not particularly strange (whatever one might feel about the use of "consequence" with this meaning).
Well, the other one turned out to be pretty straightforward:
...for the sake of giving relief to my own feelings, care not how much I may be wounding your's [sic]...
Feelings are being wounded, or hurt. Probably it was the first example that confused Dunia.
Okay, I just found a searchable version of Pride and Predjudice online, and it says that "wounding" only occurs twice in the whole book. (whew!) So I looked at them. The first is:
His sense of her inferiority -- of its being a degradation -- of the family obstacles which judgment had always opposed to inclination, were dwelt on with a warmth which seemed due to the consequence he was wounding, but was very unlikely to recommend his suit.
The trick here is that the word consequence is being used in an archaic way, to mean importance, or one's own sense of what is due them. Consequence is the object of wounding in this sentence... he's overemphasizing her lowly station due to his sense that he's damaging his own "consequence", or reputation, by proposing, which doesn't make his proposal particuliarly acceptable (it's actually a humorous sentence, once you untangle it).
I'm going to post this, then go look at the other "wounding". By the way, kudos to any non-native speaker attempting this book. Native speakers often find the language tricky!!
It's been a while since I read "Pride and Prejudice" but, in general, I don't have any problems with 19th century literature (except, perhaps, Dickens when he's illustrating the speech of street urchins). As I said before, though, if that's the _whole_ sentence, I think it's strange. How about supplying the preceding & following sentences (by way of giving additional context)?
P.S. The OED gives "wound" as transitive or reflexive (e.g. he wounded himself) but says nothing about an _intransitive_ use.
Heidita,
For me upper class and posh have a negative nuance, and I didn't mean to put it that way. For me elevated is very educated, sofisticated, civilized but in a positive sense, higher than meainstream.
Gus said:
Dunia said:
The sentence is from "Pride and Prejudice" so is ninteenth century English. The book if full of curious constructions. For me it sounded quite weird, but out of context the meaning was clear (he was feeling pain himself). In wordreference I've read that "wound" can be transitive and intransitive.I'd rather forget this use of wound, surely it is old-fashioned or very elevated.
What do you mean when you wrote very elevated,
upper class and very posh
Dunia said:
The sentence is from "Pride and Prejudice" so is ninteenth century English. The book if full of curious constructions. For me it sounded quite weird, but out of context the meaning was clear (he was feeling pain himself). In wordreference I've read that "wound" can be transitive and intransitive.I'd rather forget this use of wound, surely it is old-fashioned or very elevated.
What do you mean when you wrote very elevated,
The sentence is from "Pride and Prejudice" so is ninteenth century English. The book if full of curious constructions. For me it sounded quite weird, but out of context the meaning was clear (he was feeling pain himself). In wordreference I've read that "wound" can be transitive and intransitive.
I'd rather forget this use of wound, surely it is old-fashioned or very elevated.
In my opinion, that doesn't make any sense. As samdie says, "wounding" has to have an object. Could this be a typo'
If this is the whole sentence, then it's super weird (I can't really imagine a native speaker saying this). But as the other two answers said, if there's more to the sentence (to suggest that he was causing pain/injury/emotional suffering to someone _else_
then it's a reasonable _beginning_ of a sentence.
In (mildly) grammatical terms: "to wound" is a transitive verb and it requires an object.
Unusual, but I think it means he was hurting, maybe emotionally, someone else.
