Google Groups no longer supports new Usenet posts or subscriptions. Historical content remains viewable.
Dismiss

beneath

2 views
Skip to first unread message

GG

unread,
Feb 9, 2012, 2:53:21 AM2/9/12
to
"the dirt beneath his feet"
seems much more frequent than
"the dirt below his feet"

Any reasons?

Thanks.

John Holmes

unread,
Feb 9, 2012, 3:28:51 AM2/9/12
to
Impossible to say without context.

--
Regards
John
for mail: my initials plus a u e
at tpg dot com dot au

Duggy

unread,
Feb 9, 2012, 4:30:38 AM2/9/12
to
Below is any dirt lower than him.
Beneath is the dirt he's standing on.

===
= DUG.
===

GG

unread,
Feb 9, 2012, 5:21:03 AM2/9/12
to
I see.
Thanks, everybody.

John Holmes

unread,
Feb 9, 2012, 6:00:03 AM2/9/12
to
There are lots of possible combinations for:
the {dirt, earth, soil, ground...} {below, beneath, under..} his feet
Have you compared them all?

I am afraid I don't understand the purpose of your popularity contest? Is it
supposed to prove that one is any more "correct" than another?

Each of them might have their own shade of meaning appropriate to a given
context, hence my earlier comment.

Robert Bannister

unread,
Feb 9, 2012, 10:25:34 PM2/9/12
to
Without more context, I take "beneath" to refer to the dirt he is
standing on, whilst the dirt below could be several hundreds of fathoms
down.


--
Robert Bannister

Eric Walker

unread,
Feb 12, 2012, 7:38:36 PM2/12/12
to
Despite some fancy parsing on this thread, in simple fact the words are
virtual synonyms. "Beneath" is idiomatic; that is a sufficient answer in
itself (considering what "idiom" is)--but it probably derives from the
point that "beneath" also has the related connotation of covering in
close contact ("the ground beneath the snow", "the huddled form beneath
the blanket"), and so implies contact between the covering (feet") and
what is covered.


--
Cordially,
Eric Walker

0 new messages