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bideogame rule (lemmy.ml)

submitted 9 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

Oh, yeah. Language is just fun to observe because its easy to not notice.

I understood it to mean "the end of something", though I guess "repeating the game" might be more concrete. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ It's poetry.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I think you're getting stuck on the "game over" part. This by itself does mean "the end of something" But "start over" is a separable phrasal verb that means "to begin again". So you can say "Let's start over" or "Let's start the game over".

I always felt a little bad for ESL students who just discovered phrasal verbs because they're basically a whole new set of often nonsensical verbs to learn.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

If you go by what my high school teachers taught me, grammatically the phrase should 'technically' be "start over the game," but nobody speaks like that.

I say this because there are plenty of grammar "rules" that nobody follows that are still taught in schools. I don't know if ESL students learn them too, but if they do it's gotta be hella confusing

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I think it's an obligatorily separated phrasal verb. This page has some examples of others like it https://random-idea-english.blogspot.com/2013/04/phrasal-verbs-that-are-always-separated.html?m=1

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

Cool, thanks! I was taught the complete opposite, this is a much better reflection of how the language is actually used, and that's what matters :)