spend money buying?

[Yurui Liu]

Hi,

Does it make sense to say 'he spent 100 dollars buying the
laptop' meaning he bought that laptop for 100 dollars?
I suspect it's incorrect. What do you think?

I'd appreciate your comments.

[Peter Young]

Looks pretty standard English to me.

Peter.

--
Peter Young, (BrE, RP), Consultant Anaesthetist, 1975-2004.
(US equivalent: Certified Anesthesiologist) (AUE Re)
Cheltenham and Gloucester, UK. Now happily retired.
http://pnyoung.orpheusweb.co.uk

[Peter T. Daniels]

Why does it seem "incorrect"?

"You took three days replying to the earlier message."

[Stan Brown]

On Thu, 18 Dec 2014 09:43:02 GMT, Peter Young wrote:
> On 18 Dec 2014 Yurui Liu <liuyur...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Hi,
>
> > Does it make sense to say 'he spent 100 dollars buying the
> > laptop' meaning he bought that laptop for 100 dollars?

I probably wouldn't notice anything odd if I heard this.

But the usual way to express that thought is "He spent $100 on the
laptop."

--
"The difference between the /almost right/ word and the /right/ word
is ... the difference between the lightning-bug and the lightning."
--Mark Twain
Stan Brown, Tompkins County, NY, USA http://OakRoadSystems.com

[Katy Jennison]

On 18/12/2014 13:48, Stan Brown wrote:
> On Thu, 18 Dec 2014 09:43:02 GMT, Peter Young wrote:
>> On 18 Dec 2014 Yurui Liu <liuyur...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Hi,
>>
>>> Does it make sense to say 'he spent 100 dollars buying the
>>> laptop' meaning he bought that laptop for 100 dollars?
>
> I probably wouldn't notice anything odd if I heard this.
>
> But the usual way to express that thought is "He spent $100 on the
> laptop."
>

And it would be pefectly natural in, say, "He had a $500 check from his
grandma: he spent $100 on the laptop, and the rest he put in his savings
account."

--
Katy Jennison

[Katy Jennison]

Dammit, I meant to write "... $100 buying ...". Not enough caffeine yet.

--
Katy Jennison

[Tony Cooper]

Acceptable enough. As part of context it could be more than
acceptable:

He was given a budget of $1,000 for the project. He spent $100 buying
the laptop.
--
Tony Cooper - Orlando FL

[Horace LaBadie]

In article <c4fc38d9-1a54-4708...@googlegroups.com>,

Maybe he spent $100 total to find the right laptop.

[John Varela]

I was thinking the inverse. After paying cab fare and other
extraneous costs, the laptop cost him $100, but only part of that
went for the actual purchase.

Context is everything.

--
John Varela

[Tony Cooper]

On 18 Dec 2014 22:47:24 GMT, "John Varela" <newl...@verizon.net>

wrote:

>On Thu, 18 Dec 2014 15:09:36 UTC, Tony Cooper
><tonyco...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On Thu, 18 Dec 2014 01:35:07 -0800 (PST), Yurui Liu
>> <liuyur...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> >Hi,
>> >
>> >Does it make sense to say 'he spent 100 dollars buying the
>> >laptop' meaning he bought that laptop for 100 dollars?
>> >I suspect it's incorrect. What do you think?
>> >
>> >I'd appreciate your comments.
>>
>> Acceptable enough. As part of context it could be more than
>> acceptable:
>>
>> He was given a budget of $1,000 for the project. He spent $100 buying
>> the laptop.
>
>I was thinking the inverse. After paying cab fare and other
>extraneous costs, the laptop cost him $100, but only part of that
>went for the actual purchase.
>
>Context is everything.

Yes, it could work like that.

He was given a budget of $1,000 for the project. The only store that
carried the laptop he wanted was in Queens, and that was a $50 cabfare
each way. He spent $100 buying the laptop.

[Peter T. Daniels]

On Thursday, December 18, 2014 5:59:36 PM UTC-5, Tony Cooper wrote:
> On 18 Dec 2014 22:47:24 GMT, "John Varela" <newl...@verizon.net>
> wrote:
> >On Thu, 18 Dec 2014 15:09:36 UTC, Tony Cooper
> ><tonyco...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> On Thu, 18 Dec 2014 01:35:07 -0800 (PST), Yurui Liu
> >> <liuyur...@gmail.com> wrote:

> >> >Does it make sense to say 'he spent 100 dollars buying the
> >> >laptop' meaning he bought that laptop for 100 dollars?
> >> >I suspect it's incorrect. What do you think?

> >> Acceptable enough. As part of context it could be more than
> >> acceptable:
> >> He was given a budget of $1,000 for the project. He spent $100 buying
> >> the laptop.
> >I was thinking the inverse. After paying cab fare and other
> >extraneous costs, the laptop cost him $100, but only part of that
> >went for the actual purchase.

Where do you get a $100 laptop? (If it's used, it may not be able to run
the latest versions of the programs [not "apps"] you want to use.)

> >Context is everything.
>
> Yes, it could work like that.
>
> He was given a budget of $1,000 for the project. The only store that
> carried the laptop he wanted was in Queens, and that was a $50 cabfare
> each way. He spent $100 buying the laptop.

Why didn't he take the subway, for $2.50 each way including a transfer
to a bus?

[Tony Cooper]

The laptop fell of the back of a FedEx truck, was recovered by Stan
Murch, and he would only reveal the location of the bargain laptop to
his mother. The buyer had to take Glady's cab for the pick-up.

[Robert Bannister]

On 18/12/2014 5:43 pm, Peter Young wrote:
> On 18 Dec 2014 Yurui Liu <liuyur...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>
>> Does it make sense to say 'he spent 100 dollars buying the
>> laptop' meaning he bought that laptop for 100 dollars?
>> I suspect it's incorrect. What do you think?
>
>> I'd appreciate your comments.
>
> Looks pretty standard English to me.
>
> Peter.
>

Other interpretations could be:
It cost him $75 in petrol getting to where he could buy a cheap,
second-hand $25 laptop.
He paid $90 in bribes plus a $10 charge to get an out of date old laptop
that wasn't even worth two bucks.

Then again, you might go for the obvious meaning that 99% of English
speakers would pick.
--
Robert Bannister - 1940-71 SE England
1972-now W Australia

[Helen Lacedaemonian]

Suppose it's not a laptop. Suppose it's something more ambiguous. Like a girl.

"He spent $100 on the girl."

not the same as

"He spent $100 buying the girl."

Or, what about this?

"He spent $100 on the blackjack table."

vs.

"He spent $100 buying the blackjack table."

Best,
Helen

[Peter Moylan]

That's getting closer to what I thought when I first read the sentence:
the $100 was in addition to the price of the laptop itself.

--
Peter Moylan http://www.pmoylan.org

[Yurui Liu]

Peter Moylan於 2014年12月19日星期五UTC+8下午8時43分57秒寫道：

You guys' replies reveal a commmon misunderstanding on the part
of Chinese-speaking learners: they typically think the sentence
means 'he bought the laptop for $100.'

[Yurui Liu]

Peter T. Daniels於 2014年12月18日星期四UTC+8下午8時35分16秒寫道：

The typical equivalence of 'he spent 100 dollars buying the laptop"
and "he bought the laptop for 100 dollars" on the part of
Chinese-speaking learners is what seems incorrect.

[Peter T. Daniels]

On Friday, December 19, 2014 8:29:59 AM UTC-5, Yurui Liu wrote:

> You guys' replies reveal a commmon misunderstanding on the part
> of Chinese-speaking learners: they typically think the sentence
> means 'he bought the laptop for $100.'

It's too late to try to figure out which "the sentence" you're talking
about, but what you give is the most common, ordinary interpretation of
"he spent $100 on the laptop." Only your insistence on inventing absurd
alternatives causes people to try to bend the (Grice) "Maxims of Conversation"
in order to try to figure out why you are asking for something else.

[Tony Cooper]

On Fri, 19 Dec 2014 05:29:56 -0800 (PST), Yurui Liu
<liuyur...@gmail.com> wrote:

>Peter Moylan? 2014?12?19????UTC+8??8?43?57????

What you do mean "you guys"? I saw it used both ways. Context would
provide which was the operational way.

[Yurui Liu]

Peter T. Daniels於 2014年12月19日星期五UTC+8下午10時11分08秒寫道：

I'm talking about "he spent 100 dollars buying the laptop', and the
assertion that 'he bought the laptop for 100 dollars' is its most
ordinary interpretation has been falsified by Peter Moylan's reply.

[CDB]

It was "'he spent 100 dollars buying the
laptop' meaning he bought that laptop for 100 dollars".

It's probably not the way native speakers would say it, but context and
common sense would make the meaning clear in most cases.

[Yurui Liu]

CDB於 2014年12月19日星期五UTC+8下午11時32分34秒寫道：

So you've offered support for my suspicion that the sentence is
unnatural on that particular reading?

I guess the following sounds much better. What do you think?

He spent $300 talking to the counsellor.

I was thinking about the difference between 'buy the laptop'
and 'talk to the counsellor; it may have a lot to do with
the different degrees of acceptability.

[Tony Cooper]

On Fri, 19 Dec 2014 07:09:37 -0800 (PST), Yurui Liu
<liuyur...@gmail.com> wrote:

>Peter T. Daniels? 2014?12?19????UTC+8??10?11?08????

It has not been falsified. What you seem to be unwilling to recognize
is context. The sentence alone is ambiguous, and may be understood to
mean the cost of the laptop or to mean the costs associated with the
purchase of the laptop exclusive of the actual price of the laptop.

Added context would determine which meaning applies.

There seems to be an annoying - very annoying - habit on the part of
the non-native English speakers in this group to insist that all
sentences must have a particular meaning. In fact, many sentences -
as this one - are so ambiguous that additional context is required to
understand the meaning. Without that context, the sentences have no
clear and understood meaning.

An example is "Hit the door". In the US, that sentence could mean
either "leave the room now" or "strike the door hard enough to close
it". The sentence would never be used without context that would
establish the meaning.

[Horace LaBadie]

In article <c62f4319-681a-4d45...@googlegroups.com>,

Yurui Liu <liuyur...@gmail.com> wrote:

> CDB於 2014年12月19日星期五UTC+8下午11時32分34秒寫道：
> > On 19/12/2014 9:11 AM, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> > > Yurui Liu wrote:
> >
> > >> You guys' replies reveal a commmon misunderstanding on the part of
> > >> Chinese-speaking learners: they typically think the sentence means
> > >> 'he bought the laptop for $100.'
> >
> > > It's too late to try to figure out which "the sentence" you're
> > > talking about, but what you give is the most common, ordinary
> > > interpretation of "he spent $100 on the laptop." Only your insistence
> > > on inventing absurd alternatives causes people to try to bend the
> > > (Grice) "Maxims of Conversation" in order to try to figure out why
> > > you are asking for something else.
> >
> > It was "'he spent 100 dollars buying the
> > laptop' meaning he bought that laptop for 100 dollars".
> >
> > It's probably not the way native speakers would say it, but context and
> > common sense would make the meaning clear in most cases.
>
>
> So you've offered support for my suspicion that the sentence is
> unnatural on that particular reading?
>
> I guess the following sounds much better. What do you think?
>
> He spent $300 talking to the counsellor.

He ran up a three hundred dollar phone bill?

[Yurui Liu]

Tony Cooper於 2014年12月19日星期五UTC+8下午11時55分08秒寫道：

Do you find "He spent $300 talking to the counsellor"
ambiguous in the same way?


IF not, there is definitely something interesting about
'he spent $300 buying the latop' detached from context
that deserves a discussion.

[Yurui Liu]

Horace LaBadie於 2014年12月20日星期六UTC+8上午12時05分09秒寫道：

> In article <c62f4319-681a-4d45...@googlegroups.com>,
> Yurui Liu <liuyur...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > CDB於 2014年12月19日星期五UTC+8下午11時32分34秒寫道：
> > > On 19/12/2014 9:11 AM, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> > > > Yurui Liu wrote:
> > >
> > > >> You guys' replies reveal a commmon misunderstanding on the part of
> > > >> Chinese-speaking learners: they typically think the sentence means
> > > >> 'he bought the laptop for $100.'
> > >
> > > > It's too late to try to figure out which "the sentence" you're
> > > > talking about, but what you give is the most common, ordinary
> > > > interpretation of "he spent $100 on the laptop." Only your insistence
> > > > on inventing absurd alternatives causes people to try to bend the
> > > > (Grice) "Maxims of Conversation" in order to try to figure out why
> > > > you are asking for something else.
> > >
> > > It was "'he spent 100 dollars buying the
> > > laptop' meaning he bought that laptop for 100 dollars".
> > >
> > > It's probably not the way native speakers would say it, but context and
> > > common sense would make the meaning clear in most cases.
> >
> >
> > So you've offered support for my suspicion that the sentence is
> > unnatural on that particular reading?
> >
> > I guess the following sounds much better. What do you think?
> >
> > He spent $300 talking to the counsellor.
>
> He ran up a three hundred dollar phone bill?

Here's my suspicion:

"He spent $300 buying the laptop' readily refers to cost of the
preparatory actions leading up to the buying act itself.
But 'he spent $300 talking to the counsellor' does not.

What do you think?

[Tony Cooper]

On Fri, 19 Dec 2014 08:07:30 -0800 (PST), Yurui Liu
<liuyur...@gmail.com> wrote:

>Tony Cooper? 2014?12?19????UTC+8??11?55?08????

That sentence is so far from the normal way of stating what was done
that I can't comment on it. You can't just make up combinations of
words and expect them to result in rules about English.

One doesn't spend $300 in talking to a counsellor. The fees for the
session(s) may be $300, the costs of long distance phone calls to a
counsellor may be $300, but no native speaker of English would write
the sentence as you have written it.

[Horace LaBadie]

In article <b72e399b-d2c6-4b3a...@googlegroups.com>,

My question tells you what I think.
The $300 could be some incidental
cost to the actual cost of the counseling.

[Yurui Liu]

Horace LaBadie於 2014年12月20日星期六UTC+8上午12時33分45秒寫道：

But that sort of incidental cost is still about
the actual talking, unlike the incidental cost of

preparatory actions leading up to the buying act itself.

Can 'he spent $300 talking to a counsellor' refer to the
cost of getting things ready to facilitate the counselling,
exclusive of the counselling or the phone bills?

[Yurui Liu]

Tony Cooper於 2014年12月20日星期六UTC+8上午12時27分20秒寫道：

That's ok. Just replace 'talking to a counsellor' with another action
that lasts a length of time if you don't like it.

[Tony Cooper]

On Fri, 19 Dec 2014 08:45:40 -0800 (PST), Yurui Liu
<liuyur...@gmail.com> wrote:

>Tony Cooper? 2014?12?20????UTC+8??12?27?20????

What good would that do? If I make up the combination of words, I'm
going to make up a combination of words that are unambiguous and
clearly state the situation.

That doesn't help you, because what you are doing is making up a
combination of words that have ambiguous meaning without context.

"I spent $300 in car repairs in the month of November" is not an
ambiguous sentence, but it covers actions taken over a period of time.

[Yurui Liu]

Tony Cooper於 2014年12月20日星期六UTC+8上午1時08分22秒寫道：

It does a whole lot of good to those who want to investigate the
intricacies of English grammar.

>
> That doesn't help you, because what you are doing is making up a
> combination of words that have ambiguous meaning without context.
>
> "I spent $300 in car repairs in the month of November" is not an
> ambiguous sentence, but it covers actions taken over a period of time.

I am looking for a Ving form, not a nominal phrase, after 'spent
$300'.

What about "he spent $300 singing the song', assuming that the event
took place at a karaoke bar?

[Yurui Liu]

Tony Cooper於 2014年12月19日星期五UTC+8下午11時55分08秒寫道：

> On Fri, 19 Dec 2014 07:09:37 -0800 (PST), Yurui Liu
> <liuyur...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >Peter T. Daniels? 2014?12?19????UTC+8??10?11?08????
> >> On Friday, December 19, 2014 8:29:59 AM UTC-5, Yurui Liu wrote:
> >>
> >> > You guys' replies reveal a commmon misunderstanding on the part
> >> > of Chinese-speaking learners: they typically think the sentence
> >> > means 'he bought the laptop for $100.'
> >>
> >> It's too late to try to figure out which "the sentence" you're talking
> >> about, but what you give is the most common, ordinary interpretation of
> >> "he spent $100 on the laptop." Only your insistence on inventing absurd
> >> alternatives causes people to try to bend the (Grice) "Maxims of Conversation"
> >> in order to try to figure out why you are asking for something else.
> >
> >I'm talking about "he spent 100 dollars buying the laptop', and the
> >assertion that 'he bought the laptop for 100 dollars' is its most
> >ordinary interpretation has been falsified by Peter Moylan's reply.
>
> It has not been falsified. What you seem to be unwilling to recognize
> is context. The sentence alone is ambiguous, and may be understood to
> mean the cost of the laptop or to mean the costs associated with the
> purchase of the laptop exclusive of the actual price of the laptop.

Haven't you read Peter Moylan's remark that

"That's getting closer to what I thought when I first read
the sentence: the $100 was in addition to the price of the

laptop itself"?

And CDB's: It's probably not the way native speakers would say it...

Given the two replies, how could 'he bought the laptop for
100 dollars' be the most common reading of 'he spent 100
dollars buying the laptop'?

[Helen Lacedaemonian]

Because opinions differ.

Best,
Helen

[Helen Lacedaemonian]

What is your goal?

You appear to be looking for an exception to the general rule -- an example that we all agree is not ambiguous.

Why?

If, on the other hand, your goal is to express yourself clearly, most folk here would recommend you use a different construction.

Best,
Helen

[Peter Duncanson [BrE]]

To me the version with "he spent 100 dollars buying the laptop" draws
attention to the fact that after the purchase he had 100 dollars less
than before the purchase.


--
Peter Duncanson, UK
(in alt.usage.english)

[Yurui Liu]

PeterWD於 2014年12月20日星期六UTC+8上午1時38分35秒寫道：

You mean that the sentence means 'he bought the laptop for
100 dollars,' don't you?

[Yurui Liu]

Helen Lacedaemonian於 2014年12月20日星期六UTC+8上午1時33分14秒寫道：

So the general rule is that 'spend money Ving' is ambiguous?
Do you find 'he spent $300 singing the song' ambiguous in the
way that 'he spent $100 buying the laptop' is?


> Why?

If a certain 'spend money Ving' sentence is not ambiguous in the way
that 'he spent $100 buying the laptop' is, isn't that something
interesting and significant for an English learner?

>
> If, on the other hand, your goal is to express yourself clearly, most folk here would recommend you use a different construction.

English learners optimally should learn to distinguish which sentences
are ambiguous and which are not. To reach the goal, the question I
raised here must be addressed.




>
> Best,
> Helen

[Horace LaBadie]

In article <22930be0-ff61-45b8...@googlegroups.com>,

And the expense of finding the actual laptop is no different.

> Can 'he spent $300 talking to a counsellor' refer to the
> cost of getting things ready to facilitate the counselling,
> exclusive of the counselling or the phone bills?

Maybe it cost $300 taking time off from work. Maybe he paid
someone to fill in for him at work, or to babysit.

[Peter T. Daniels]

No, it has not. Read my explanation. Peter M was trying to come up with
different interpretations to account for your various rephrasings.

[Peter T. Daniels]

Cf. "Hit the road, Jack!" Wouldn't it be interesting to see Yurui Liu
interpret it literally?

[Peter T. Daniels]

Whereas "He wasted $300 talking to the counsellor" is perfectly normal
and acceptable. But it still doesn't let us know whether it was the fee
for a session, or the cost of long-distance phone calls, or ....

[Peter T. Daniels]

Because when a non-native-speaker says something somewhat unusual, like
that, an ordinary person of good will will assume that the person is
trying to say the most likely thing one would say in a given situation,
but not quite managing to do so, and interpret the odd sentence as if it
had been a more usual sentence.

[Peter T. Daniels]

On Friday, December 19, 2014 12:59:14 PM UTC-5, Yurui Liu wrote:

> English learners optimally should learn to distinguish which sentences
> are ambiguous and which are not. To reach the goal, the question I
> raised here must be addressed.

Here is the simplest, most basic rule any learner must master:

ALL SENTENCES ARE AMBIGUOUS when they occur out of the blue with no context.

[Tony Cooper]

On Fri, 19 Dec 2014 09:26:08 -0800 (PST), Yurui Liu
<liuyur...@gmail.com> wrote:

>Tony Cooper? 2014?12?19????UTC+8??11?55?08????

What, exactly, do you think "ambigious" means?

A statement is not falsified just because two different meanings can
be gleaned from it.

--

[Rich Ulrich]

On Fri, 19 Dec 2014 09:47:08 -0800 (PST), Yurui Liu
<liuyur...@gmail.com> wrote:

>PeterWD? 2014?12?20????UTC+8??1?38?35????

>> On Fri, 19 Dec 2014 10:32:19 -0500, CDB <belle...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> >On 19/12/2014 9:11 AM, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>> >> Yurui Liu wrote:
>> >
>> >>> You guys' replies reveal a commmon misunderstanding on the part of
>> >>> Chinese-speaking learners: they typically think the sentence means
>> >>> 'he bought the laptop for $100.'
>> >
>> >> It's too late to try to figure out which "the sentence" you're
>> >> talking about, but what you give is the most common, ordinary
>> >> interpretation of "he spent $100 on the laptop." Only your insistence
>> >> on inventing absurd alternatives causes people to try to bend the
>> >> (Grice) "Maxims of Conversation" in order to try to figure out why
>> >> you are asking for something else.
>> >
>> >It was "'he spent 100 dollars buying the
>> >laptop' meaning he bought that laptop for 100 dollars".
>> >
>> >It's probably not the way native speakers would say it, but context and
>> >common sense would make the meaning clear in most cases.
>> >
>>
>> To me the version with "he spent 100 dollars buying the laptop" draws
>> attention to the fact that after the purchase he had 100 dollars less
>> than before the purchase.

Right.

>
>
>You mean that the sentence means 'he bought the laptop for
>100 dollars,' don't you?
>

s
I would say, NO, generally.

Why would the speaker NOT say, "bought it for $100"?
- which is the idiomatic way of saying it...
- almost always, because the speaker chooses to imply that
"it wasn't that simple" and there were some other costs.

A parallel example might help. You could say that you bought a
house for one hundred thousand dollars, plus title search and fees.
Or you could say that you spent $110,000 buying the house.
For a house, there always would be two different numbers.
Using the latter wording suggests that there is a total, of something.

--
Rich Ulrich

[Peter Moylan]

I'll confirm, in case it's needed, that my first impression is only one
possible interpretation. Different people will hear it different ways,
which is why it's ambiguous.

>> And CDB's: It's probably not the way native speakers would say it...
>>
>> Given the two replies, how could 'he bought the laptop for
>> 100 dollars' be the most common reading of 'he spent 100
>> dollars buying the laptop'?
>
> What, exactly, do you think "ambigious" means?
>
> A statement is not falsified just because two different meanings can
> be gleaned from it.

I can't remember whether this has yet been mentioned, but there's a
simple change that would turn the sentence into something a native
speaker would say: "He spent $100 on a laptop".

(But notice that I used an indefinite article. If you have a definite
laptop in mind, you would say "The laptop cost him $100" -- as one of
several good possibilities.)

--
Peter Moylan http://www.pmoylan.org

[Yurui Liu]

Peter T. Daniels於 2014年12月20日星期六UTC+8上午3時03分34秒寫道：

No, he has said that ""That's getting
closer to what I thought when I FIRST read the sentence"

Did he TRY to come up with a different interpretation for my
sentence? No.

[Yurui Liu]

Peter T. Daniels於 2014年12月20日星期六UTC+8上午3時13分39秒寫道：

It's more accurate to say all sentences are underspecified with
respect to certain information; they are not necessarily ambiguous
in the technical sense. E.g. Oppeheim is an editor. The person's
gender is unspecified in this case, but this is not ambiguity.

I'm interested not in this sort of 'ambiguity'. And certainly
not not all sentences are ambiguous in the technical sense.

[Yurui Liu]

Tony Cooper於 2014年12月20日星期六UTC+8上午4時13分41秒寫道：

Assuming that Peter M's reply is representative of native speakers
in general (in restrospect, though, it may not seem so), the

assertion that 'he bought the laptop for 100 dollars" is

the most common reading of 'he spent 100 dollars buying the laptop"

is falsified.

[Yurui Liu]

Rich Ulrich於 2014年12月20日星期六UTC+8上午4時24分30秒寫道：

I'm taking his word 'purchase' seriously. In your example,
the incidental cost is not part of the cost of purchase.
Doesn't purchase mean the act of buying something?

> --
> Rich Ulrich

[Jerry Friedman]

On Thursday, December 18, 2014 8:48:54 AM UTC-5, Stan Brown wrote:
> On Thu, 18 Dec 2014 09:43:02 GMT, Peter Young wrote:
> > On 18 Dec 2014 Yurui Liu <liuyur...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > Hi,
> >
> > > Does it make sense to say 'he spent 100 dollars buying the
> > > laptop' meaning he bought that laptop for 100 dollars?
>
> I probably wouldn't notice anything odd if I heard this.

It's easy to find Google hits for it too.

> But the usual way to express that thought is "He spent $100 on the
> laptop."

Or "He paid $100 for the laptop."

--
Jerry Friedman

[Tony Cooper]

On Fri, 19 Dec 2014 16:52:10 -0800 (PST), Yurui Liu
<liuyur...@gmail.com> wrote:

>Tony Cooper? 2014?12?20????UTC+8??4?13?41????

First, you can't make that assumption. You should not entertain the
idea that any contributor this newsgroup is representative of the
entire group of people who are native speakers of the language. Or,
even the entire group of people who are native speakers of the
language as it is used in their own locale.

Second, Peter's statement did not falsify anything. It contradicted
the statements made by others. To "falsify" something means to rend
it incorrect. He did not present it as the most common reading of the
sentence. He presented it as *his* reading. He is correct in that it
is his reading.

[Tony Cooper]

On Fri, 19 Dec 2014 16:55:18 -0800 (PST), Yurui Liu
<liuyur...@gmail.com> wrote:

>Rich Ulrich? 2014?12?20????UTC+8??4?24?30????

Yes, but the purchase price includes all the directly associated costs
of the purchase.

If you purchase a $10 item in the State of Florida, the purchase price
will be $10.70. The 70 cent tax amount is included in the purchase
price.

[Yurui Liu]

Tony Cooper於 2014年12月20日星期六UTC+8上午9時20分44秒寫道：

That example of yours is unsurprising in that the sales tax is often
considered part of the price. Can 'the purchase price' include other
costs, e.g. cabfare? Probably not. Then it would show that Peter WD's
reading of "he spent 100 dollars buying the laptop" is that
'he bought the laptop for 100 dollars, tax included', exclusive of
all other costs.
the laptop for 100 dollars'.

[Yurui Liu]

Tony Cooper於 2014年12月20日星期六UTC+8上午9時16分06秒寫道：

Speaking of that, I shouldn't have made the assumption that
your rejection of 'he spent $300 talking to a counsellor' is
representative of English speakers in general. I found native speakers
who accept and even said they'd say it elsewhere.

Btw, could you tell me what's wrong with 'he spent $300 talking
to a counsellor'?

>
> Second, Peter's statement did not falsify anything. It contradicted
> the statements made by others. To "falsify" something means to rend
> it incorrect. He did not present it as the most common reading of the
> sentence. He presented it as *his* reading. He is correct in that it
> is his reading.

*On the assumption* that his judgment is representative (which may not be),
it was correct to say his statement falsified the assertion concerned.
Of course, once his judgment was found unrepresentative, that
falsification was found void as well.

[CDB]

On 19/12/2014 11:07 AM, Yurui Liu wrote:
> Tony Cooper：
>> Yurui Liu <liuyur...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Peter T. Daniels:

>>>> Yurui Liu wrote:

>>>>> You guys' replies reveal a commmon misunderstanding on the
>>>>> part of Chinese-speaking learners: they typically think the
>>>>> sentence means 'he bought the laptop for $100.'

>>>> It's too late to try to figure out which "the sentence" you're
>>>> talking about, but what you give is the most common, ordinary
>>>> interpretation of "he spent $100 on the laptop." Only your
>>>> insistence on inventing absurd alternatives causes people to
>>>> try to bend the (Grice) "Maxims of Conversation" in order to
>>>> try to figure out why you are asking for something else.

>>> I'm talking about "he spent 100 dollars buying the laptop', and
>>> the assertion that 'he bought the laptop for 100 dollars' is its
>>> most ordinary interpretation has been falsified by Peter Moylan's
>>> reply.

>> It has not been falsified. What you seem to be unwilling to
>> recognize is context. The sentence alone is ambiguous, and may be
>> understood to mean the cost of the laptop or to mean the costs
>> associated with the purchase of the laptop exclusive of the actual
>> price of the laptop.

>> Added context would determine which meaning applies.

>> There seems to be an annoying - very annoying - habit on the part
>> of the non-native English speakers in this group to insist that
>> all sentences must have a particular meaning. In fact, many
>> sentences - as this one - are so ambiguous that additional context
>> is required to understand the meaning. Without that context, the
>> sentences have no clear and understood meaning.

>> An example is "Hit the door". In the US, that sentence could mean
>> either "leave the room now" or "strike the door hard enough to
>> close it". The sentence would never be used without context that
>> would establish the meaning.

> Do you find "He spent $300 talking to the counsellor" ambiguous in
> the same way?

> IF not, there is definitely something interesting about 'he spent
> $300 buying the latop' detached from context that deserves a
> discussion.

The difficulty may come from putting the words "spend" and "buy"
together. "Buying" is the act of giving up something of value in
exchange for something else that you want; in most modern circumstances,
the thing that you give up is money. Your sample sentence seems to
imply that he has given up money in exchange for the opportunity to give
up money for a laptop, as some others have remarked.

"He spent $100 talking to the counsellor" doesn't have the same problem.
He gave up the money in exchange for the opportunity to talk to the
counsellor.

[CDB]

On 19/12/2014 10:51 AM, Yurui Liu wrote:
> CDB：

>> Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>>> Yurui Liu wrote:

>>>> You guys' replies reveal a commmon misunderstanding on the part of
>>>> Chinese-speaking learners: they typically think the sentence means
>>>> 'he bought the laptop for $100.'

>>> It's too late to try to figure out which "the sentence" you're
>>> talking about, but what you give is the most common, ordinary
>>> interpretation of "he spent $100 on the laptop." Only your insistence
>>> on inventing absurd alternatives causes people to try to bend the
>>> (Grice) "Maxims of Conversation" in order to try to figure out why
>>> you are asking for something else.

>> It was "'he spent 100 dollars buying the
>> laptop' meaning he bought that laptop for 100 dollars".

>> It's probably not the way native speakers would say it, but context and
>> common sense would make the meaning clear in most cases.

> So you've offered support for my suspicion that the sentence is
> unnatural on that particular reading?

> I guess the following sounds much better. What do you think?

> He spent $300 talking to the counsellor.

> I was thinking about the difference between 'buy the laptop'
> and 'talk to the counsellor; it may have a lot to do with
> the different degrees of acceptability.

I think that's it. I replied along the same lines to another message in
the thread before seeing this one.

[John Varela]

On Fri, 19 Dec 2014 12:43:53 UTC, Peter Moylan <pe...@pmoylan.org>
wrote:

> On 19/12/14 09:59, Tony Cooper wrote:
> > On 18 Dec 2014 22:47:24 GMT, "John Varela" <newl...@verizon.net>
> > wrote:
> >
> >> On Thu, 18 Dec 2014 15:09:36 UTC, Tony Cooper
> >> <tonyco...@gmail.com> wrote:

> >>
> >>> On Thu, 18 Dec 2014 01:35:07 -0800 (PST), Yurui Liu
> >>> <liuyur...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> Hi,
> >>>>

> >>>> Does it make sense to say 'he spent 100 dollars buying the
> >>>> laptop' meaning he bought that laptop for 100 dollars?
> >>>> I suspect it's incorrect. What do you think?
> >>>>
> >>>> I'd appreciate your comments.
> >>>
> >>> Acceptable enough. As part of context it could be more than
> >>> acceptable:
> >>>
> >>> He was given a budget of $1,000 for the project. He spent $100 buying
> >>> the laptop.
> >>
> >> I was thinking the inverse. After paying cab fare and other
> >> extraneous costs, the laptop cost him $100, but only part of that
> >> went for the actual purchase.
> >>
> >> Context is everything.
> >
> > Yes, it could work like that.
> >
> > He was given a budget of $1,000 for the project. The only store that
> > carried the laptop he wanted was in Queens, and that was a $50 cabfare
> > each way. He spent $100 buying the laptop.

>
> That's getting closer to what I thought when I first read the sentence:

> the $100 was in addition to the price of the laptop itself.

That's still not how I was thinking of it. I was thinking that $100
was the total cost of the laptop plus expenses. Say, $85 for the
laptop and $15 shipping and handling, so it cost him $100 to buy the
laptop.

--
John Varela

[Tony Cooper]

On Fri, 19 Dec 2014 18:35:49 -0800 (PST), Yurui Liu
<liuyur...@gmail.com> wrote:

>Tony Cooper? 2014?12?20????UTC+8??9?20?44????

I hate to keep bringing up this word, but think *context*.

If I was insistent on purchasing an item that is not available
locally, I might consider the ancillary costs of driving to that
location to purchase the item as part of the purchase price.

I would not normally include the ancillary costs as part of the
purchase price, but in some discussions it might be appropriate to do
so. In other words, context determines.

If your question contains "can", then "yes". If your question
contains "could", then "maybe". If your question contains "will",
then "not necessarily".

[Tony Cooper]

On Fri, 19 Dec 2014 18:41:46 -0800 (PST), Yurui Liu
<liuyur...@gmail.com> wrote:

>Tony Cooper? 2014?12?20????UTC+8??9?16?06????

Certainly not. It's *my* opinion. It may be shared by others, but
even if shared by several others it's still not representative of the
larger group.

> I found native speakers
>who accept and even said they'd say it elsewhere.

That's no great trick. Pick the worst mangling of English you can
find by a native speaker and you may be able to find others who make
the same horrendous mistake.

>Btw, could you tell me what's wrong with 'he spent $300 talking
>to a counsellor'?

It is a poor choice in construction, but it isn't wrong. Buried within
context explaining the need for counseling and the lack of positive
results from counseling, it might not be noticed.

As a stand-alone sentence, it's a poor example of what might be said.

>>
>> Second, Peter's statement did not falsify anything. It contradicted
>> the statements made by others. To "falsify" something means to rend
>> it incorrect. He did not present it as the most common reading of the
>> sentence. He presented it as *his* reading. He is correct in that it
>> is his reading.
>
>*On the assumption* that his judgment is representative (which may not be),
>it was correct to say his statement falsified the assertion concerned.
>Of course, once his judgment was found unrepresentative, that
>falsification was found void as well.

You pretend to engage in these discussions in order to improve your
understanding of English. Yet, you argue with every point that
contradicts your position. You really aren't worth the bother.

[Yurui Liu]

Tony Cooper於 2014年12月20日星期六UTC+8上午11時49分05秒寫道：

Could you come up with a scenario where 'purchase price'
includes ancillary costs such as cabfare and still sounds natural?

[Yurui Liu]

Tony Cooper於 2014年12月20日星期六UTC+8下午12時07分14秒寫道：

The worst mangling of English by a native speaker, and
a "horrendous mistake"?

I'd take that comment as an opinion that screams for some
justification.

>
> >Btw, could you tell me what's wrong with 'he spent $300 talking
> >to a counsellor'?
>
> It is a poor choice in construction, but it isn't wrong. Buried within
> context explaining the need for counseling and the lack of positive
> results from counseling, it might not be noticed.

The native speakes who accept it don't necessarily find it poor;
on the contrary, at least some of them find it natural.

You still haven't explained why it is "a poor choice in construction,"

>
> As a stand-alone sentence, it's a poor example of what might be said.
>
> >>
> >> Second, Peter's statement did not falsify anything. It contradicted
> >> the statements made by others. To "falsify" something means to rend
> >> it incorrect. He did not present it as the most common reading of the
> >> sentence. He presented it as *his* reading. He is correct in that it
> >> is his reading.
> >
> >*On the assumption* that his judgment is representative (which may not be),
> >it was correct to say his statement falsified the assertion concerned.
> >Of course, once his judgment was found unrepresentative, that
> >falsification was found void as well.
>
> You pretend to engage in these discussions in order to improve your
> understanding of English. Yet, you argue with every point that
> contradicts your position. You really aren't worth the bother.

I don't *pretend* to engage in these discussions in order to improve
my understanding of English; I've openly claimed that I want to
find out the intricacies of English grammar.

[Reinhold {Rey} Aman]

T*ny C**per wrote:
>
> You pretend to engage in these discussions in order to improve your
> understanding of English. Yet, you argue with every point that
> contradicts your position. You really aren't worth the bother.
>

/|
/ |
| |
---|--- |
| |
__|__

--
~~~ Reinhold {Rey} Aman ~~~

[Horace LaBadie]

In article <e77466af-2e87-473b...@googlegroups.com>,

Yurui Liu <liuyur...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Could you come up with a scenario where 'purchase price'
> includes ancillary costs such as cabfare and still sounds natural?

An expense account.

The total amount for reimbursement includes the cab fare.

[Yurui Liu]

Horace LaBadie於 2014年12月20日星期六UTC+8下午1時48分19秒寫道：

Still, that's not a "purchase price".

[Yurui Liu]

Reinhold {Rey} Aman於 2014年12月20日星期六UTC+8下午12時56分19秒寫道：

> T*ny C**per wrote:
> >
> > You pretend to engage in these discussions in order to improve your
> > understanding of English. Yet, you argue with every point that
> > contradicts your position. You really aren't worth the bother.
> >
> /|
> / |
> | |
> ---|--- |
> | |
> __|__

You think learners have no right to question anything they find
iffy. They should take a native speaker's words as gospel truth?

[Horace LaBadie]

In article <962e019e-6207-4439...@googlegroups.com>,

Yurui Liu <liuyur...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Horace LaBadie於 2014年12月20日星期六UTC+8下午1時48分19秒寫道：
> > In article <e77466af-2e87-473b...@googlegroups.com>,
> > Yurui Liu <liuyur...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > Could you come up with a scenario where 'purchase price'
> > > includes ancillary costs such as cabfare and still sounds natural?
> >
> > An expense account.
> >
> > The total amount for reimbursement includes the cab fare.
>
> Still, that's not a "purchase price".

It could be listed as such, broken down into components.

What was the total price of the transaction?
Including incidentals? Taxes? Gratuities?

[Yurui Liu]

Horace LaBadie於 2014年12月20日星期六UTC+8下午9時26分52秒寫道：

But you're talking about the 'total price'.
By contrast, 'purchase price' seems to have a specific meaning
in a business context. I doubt that it can be interpreted to
include incidental costs such as cabfare.

[Horace LaBadie]

In article <81d2e987-fe6f-41b9...@googlegroups.com>,

Seems and doubts suggest that there is an inherent ambiguity.

[pensive hamster]

On Friday, 19 December 2014 15:55:08 UTC, Tony Cooper wrote:

> There seems to be an annoying - very annoying - habit on the part of
> the non-native English speakers in this group to insist that all
> sentences must have a particular meaning. In fact, many sentences -
> as this one - are so ambiguous that additional context is required to
> understand the meaning. Without that context, the sentences have no
> clear and understood meaning.
>
> An example is "Hit the door". In the US, that sentence could mean
> either "leave the room now" or "strike the door hard enough to close
> it". The sentence would never be used without context that would
> establish the meaning.

Yes, context is important.

The film 'Analyze This' is about a mafioso (Robert De Niro)
spending probably rather more than 300 usd on talking to a
counsellor/psychiatrist (Billy Crystal). At one point the
psychiatrist says 'Just hit the pillow, see how you feel'. So
Robert De Niro shoots the pillow.

(In psychiatry-speak, 'hit the pillow' means 'punch the pillow to
vent your anger, which should be cathartic'. In Mafia-speak,
'hit' means kill.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5wQeBLQ194

[Tony Cooper]

Example: "The price of adding the $5.00 birdhouse to my yard was over
$50."

I keep hammering away that sentences should not be examined for
acceptability unless they are examined in context. You, however, want
to examine them in isolation.

The context that makes the above example "natural" is that I had to
purchase a post on which to mount the birdhouse, a post hole digger
create the hole in which to sink the post, a bag of concrete to use to
embed the post, and a box of screws to use to attach the birdhouse to
the post.

In isolation, my example sentence is grammatically correct but without
clear meaning to the reader. Following a narrative of what was
required to add the $5.00 birdhouse to my yard, the sentence is
natural.

[Yurui Liu]

Horace LaBadie於 2014年12月20日星期六UTC+8下午11時12分32秒寫道：

I used 'seem' and 'doubts' because I am not a native speaker and
thus have some reservations. Could you produce an actual example in
a business setting, where the wording 'purchase price' includes
incidental costs?

[Yurui Liu]

Tony Cooper於 2014年12月21日星期日UTC+8上午12時32分55秒寫道：

> On Fri, 19 Dec 2014 20:46:01 -0800 (PST), Yurui Liu
> <liuyur...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >Could you come up with a scenario where 'purchase price'
> >includes ancillary costs such as cabfare and still sounds natural?
> >
> Example: "The price of adding the $5.00 birdhouse to my yard was over
> $50."
>

Still, your example is about 'price', which can be rather general.
But I'm asking for an example of 'purchase price'.
I doubt any business correspondence would use 'purchase price' in
a way that includes incidental costs （excluding tax and perhaps
shipping).

Let's see if you can come up with an example where the exact phrasing
'purchase price' includes incidental costs.

[Tony Cooper]

On Sat, 20 Dec 2014 08:55:48 -0800 (PST), Yurui Liu
<liuyur...@gmail.com> wrote:

>Tony Cooper? 2014?12?21????UTC+8??12?32?55????

>> On Fri, 19 Dec 2014 20:46:01 -0800 (PST), Yurui Liu
>> <liuyur...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> >Could you come up with a scenario where 'purchase price'
>> >includes ancillary costs such as cabfare and still sounds natural?
>> >
>> Example: "The price of adding the $5.00 birdhouse to my yard was over
>> $50."
>>
>
>Still, your example is about 'price', which can be rather general.
>But I'm asking for an example of 'purchase price'.
>I doubt any business correspondence would use 'purchase price' in

>a way that includes incidental costs ?excluding tax and perhaps

>shipping).
>
>Let's see if you can come up with an example where the exact phrasing
>'purchase price' includes incidental costs.

So what you insist on doing is creating a situation where only a
specified group of words can be used in a "natural" setting.

All right. "The purchase price of a new automobile can be several
hundred dollars over the sticker price when items like "dealer prep"
and credit verification are added."

This is a stupid exercise, though. By insisting that a particular
word group be used, you completely ignore the ability to couch a
statement in a natural formation by using different words. You don't
learn anything from this because English speakers are not restricted
to assigned word groups.

[Yurui Liu]

Tony Cooper於 2014年12月21日星期日UTC+8上午1時16分16秒寫道：

> On Sat, 20 Dec 2014 08:55:48 -0800 (PST), Yurui Liu
> <liuyur...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >Tony Cooper? 2014?12?21????UTC+8??12?32?55????
> >> On Fri, 19 Dec 2014 20:46:01 -0800 (PST), Yurui Liu
> >> <liuyur...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> >Could you come up with a scenario where 'purchase price'
> >> >includes ancillary costs such as cabfare and still sounds natural?
> >> >
> >> Example: "The price of adding the $5.00 birdhouse to my yard was over
> >> $50."
> >>
> >
> >Still, your example is about 'price', which can be rather general.
> >But I'm asking for an example of 'purchase price'.
> >I doubt any business correspondence would use 'purchase price' in
> >a way that includes incidental costs ?excluding tax and perhaps
> >shipping).
> >
> >Let's see if you can come up with an example where the exact phrasing
> >'purchase price' includes incidental costs.
>
> So what you insist on doing is creating a situation where only a
> specified group of words can be used in a "natural" setting.
>
> All right. "The purchase price of a new automobile can be several
> hundred dollars over the sticker price when items like "dealer prep"
> and credit verification are added."

This example still fails. Credit verification fees and dealer prep
fees are considered to be closely related to the commodity
itself; also, these fees are paid at the time of purchase, but
incidental costs such as cabfare are not.

When others mentioned the incidental cost reading of 'he spent
100 dollars buying the laptop', they referred to cost not so
relevant to the commodity itself.

>
> This is a stupid exercise, though. By insisting that a particular
> word group be used, you completely ignore the ability to couch a
> statement in a natural formation by using different words. You don't
> learn anything from this because English speakers are not restricted
> to assigned word groups.

By conveiently avoiding using 'purchase price' in your example
and instead using 'price' instead, you exempted yourself
from the requirements of the question. Also, your second attempt
fails to include truly incidental costs not paid at the time of
purchase.

[pensive hamster]

On Saturday, 20 December 2014 16:55:55 UTC, Yurui Liu wrote:

> But I'm asking for an example of 'purchase price'.
> I doubt any business correspondence would use 'purchase price' in
> a way that includes incidental costs （excluding tax and perhaps
> shipping).
>
> Let's see if you can come up with an example where the exact phrasing
> 'purchase price' includes incidental costs.

I expect you will find this page utterly fascinating:

http://www.whitecase.com/publications_09012009_1/#.VJXDacBMMA
[...]
'It is quite common in acquiring a private company to have a
purchase price adjustment in the calculation of the purchase
price. Buyers wish to ensure that the target company is delivered
at closing with a predetermined balance sheet (or components
thereof) to avoid having their effective purchase price exceed the
negotiated one. The purchase price adjustment should be
designed to ensure that the seller is motivated to operate the
business between signing the acquisition agreement and closing
in a fashion that is in the long term best interests of the target
company rather than the short term best interests of the seller.
The purchase price adjustment combines both accounting and
legal principles and typically represents the largest unknown
aspect of the purchase price; consequently, it is often considered
the most frequent source of post-closing disputes between the
parties to private company acquisitions. ...'

[Peter T. Daniels]

Gasp -- a purchase price that can have an "unknown aspect"??

[DJ]

On 12/20/2014 11:51 AM, Yurui Liu wrote:
....
<greatly snipped>
....

>
> I used 'seem' and 'doubts' because I am not a native speaker and
> thus have some reservations. Could you produce an actual example in
> a business setting, where the wording 'purchase price' includes
> incidental costs?
>

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/bimmanual/bim33135.htm
[quote]
1. The purchase price of an asset shall be determined by adding to the
actual price paid any expense incidental to its acquisition.
[end quote]

[Tony Cooper]

Yurui Liu seems to be a person who would a pair of shoes of any size
and insist that his feet must fit in those shoes rather than buying
shoes to fit his feet.

His objective is to fit a sentence around a word, or combination of
words, rather than fit in the word or words to express the thought. He
isn't going to learn much about English with this type of rigidity.

As a former executive who has written thousands of business letters, I
can't imagine getting stuck on force-fitting a sentence to use a
particular phrase. The intent should always be to present the
thought in the most readable and understandable manner possible.

If "purchase price" does not express what is being discussed, then
abandon it and use "total cost" or whatever other word or combination
of words does express the thought.

[Yurui Liu]

Tony Cooper於 2014年12月21日星期日UTC+8上午6時54分08秒寫道：

> On Sat, 20 Dec 2014 17:16:23 -0500, DJ <nos...@no.no> wrote:
>
> >On 12/20/2014 11:51 AM, Yurui Liu wrote:
> >....
> ><greatly snipped>
> >....
> >>
> >> I used 'seem' and 'doubts' because I am not a native speaker and
> >> thus have some reservations. Could you produce an actual example in
> >> a business setting, where the wording 'purchase price' includes
> >> incidental costs?
> >>
> >
> >http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/bimmanual/bim33135.htm
> >[quote]
> >1. The purchase price of an asset shall be determined by adding to the
> >actual price paid any expense incidental to its acquisition.
> >[end quote]
>
> Yurui Liu seems to be a person who would a pair of shoes of any size
> and insist that his feet must fit in those shoes rather than buying
> shoes to fit his feet.
>
> His objective is to fit a sentence around a word, or combination of
> words, rather than fit in the word or words to express the thought. He
> isn't going to learn much about English with this type of rigidity.
>
> As a former executive who has written thousands of business letters, I
> can't imagine getting stuck on force-fitting a sentence to use a
> particular phrase. The intent should always be to present the
> thought in the most readable and understandable manner possible.

The problem is that we are not trying to find out how to express
a thought, but to determine whether the phrasing 'purchase price'
can express a particular thought.

[micky]

On Thu, 18 Dec 2014 01:35:07 -0800 (PST), Yurui Liu
<liuyur...@gmail.com> wrote:

>Hi,
>
>Does it make sense to say 'he spent 100 dollars buying the
>laptop' meaning he bought that laptop for 100 dollars?
>I suspect it's incorrect. What do you think?

Is the problem you sense that it's redundant? It is. Spending and
buying are pretty much the same thing.

Yet most people probably phrase it this way some of the time, and afaik
few notice and no one objects.

>I'd appreciate your comments.

--
Please say where you live, or what
area's English you are asking about.
So your question or answer makes sense.
. .
I have lived all my life in the USA,
Western Pa. Indianapolis, Chicago,
Brooklyn, Baltimore.

[Yurui Liu]

DJ於 2014年12月21日星期日UTC+8上午6時16分25秒寫道：

Yes, the purchase price shall be DETERMINED by any incidental
expense as well as the actual price. But that does not mean
that, before the purchase price is finalized by consiering
all the incidental costs, the costs incurred prior to
the purchase are considered part of the purchase price.

I don't think a seller would list a purchase price by saying
, for example, the cab fare paid by the buyer is part of the
price.

In our original example sentence, "he spent 100 dollars
buying the laptop', the kind of incidental costs are buyer-related,
seen from the perspective of the buyer, not the seller.




> [end quote]

[micky]

On Fri, 19 Dec 2014 07:09:37 -0800 (PST), Yurui Liu
<liuyur...@gmail.com> wrote:

>Peter T. Daniels? 2014?12?19????UTC+8??10?11?08????
>> On Friday, December 19, 2014 8:29:59 AM UTC-5, Yurui Liu wrote:
>>
>> > You guys' replies reveal a commmon misunderstanding on the part
>> > of Chinese-speaking learners: they typically think the sentence
>> > means 'he bought the laptop for $100.'
>>
>> It's too late to try to figure out which "the sentence" you're talking
>> about, but what you give is the most common, ordinary interpretation of
>> "he spent $100 on the laptop." Only your insistence on inventing absurd
>> alternatives causes people to try to bend the (Grice) "Maxims of Conversation"
>> in order to try to figure out why you are asking for something else.
>
>I'm talking about "he spent 100 dollars buying the laptop', and the
>assertion that 'he bought the laptop for 100 dollars' is its most
>ordinary interpretation has been falsified by Peter Moylan's reply.

Falsified is a strong w0ord. It sounded at first like you were
accusing someone here of lying. Then I figured out you meant whoever
told you off the group that it was its most ordinary interpretation.
But falisifed is still too strong a word.


Peter gave a counter-example. or Peter gave an example of
those who understand it differently. is a better way to phrase it.

But Peter's speaking for himself, or maybe all of Australia. Or all of
the world south of the equator (where everything is upside down anyhow.)

For those of us who said they mean the same, they still mean the same.

[Yurui Liu]

Yurui Liu於 2014年12月21日星期日UTC+8上午8時38分05秒寫道：

I found the following sentence, and I was wondering whether
the 'purchase price' can be understood to cover truly
incidental costs such as the cab fare one pays to get to
the car dealership.


Over the years, the purchase price for a new car has risen
significantly.



>
>
>
>
> > [end quote]

[David Kleinecke]

On Saturday, December 20, 2014 12:10:24 AM UTC-8, Yurui Liu wrote:
>
> You think learners have no right to question anything they find
> iffy. They should take a native speaker's words as gospel truth?

Yes - the words native speakers speak are gospel truth about those
speaker's idiolects. But native speakers, even linguists, cannot be
trusted to always accurately describe their own speech - much less
what other speakers of the "same" language say.

[David Kleinecke]

On Saturday, December 20, 2014 4:32:26 PM UTC-8, Yurui Liu wrote:
>
> The problem is that we are not trying to find out how to express
> a thought, but to determine whether the phrasing 'purchase price'
> can express a particular thought.

Anything utterable CAN express a particular thought. But what thought
that is does not exist outside the mind of the utterer. Communication
happens when the utterance also means something to the hearer. But
effective communication happens when the phrase means the same thing
to both speaker and hearer.

"Purchase price" doesn't seem to mean the same thing to everybody.

[David Kleinecke]

On Saturday, December 20, 2014 6:06:34 PM UTC-8, Yurui Liu wrote:

> I found the following sentence, and I was wondering whether
> the 'purchase price' can be understood to cover truly
> incidental costs such as the cab fare one pays to get to
> the car dealership.
>
> Over the years, the purchase price for a new car has risen
> significantly.

Ah ha - the needed context. The speaker doesn't care which of a
fairly large set of alternatives you use. They all went up.

[Charles Bishop]

In article <a5cfb427-8965-4d50...@googlegroups.com>,

While I won't say you're totally wrong, "hit the pillow" doesn't seem to
be Mafia-speak, though it probably is close enough for the movie.
Phrases like "put a hit on the pillow (put a hit on him), or "take out a
hit on him" would be closer to what I think the phrasing would be. Of
course, "He's going to hit him tomorrow" referring to a killing would be
acceptable. I just don't hear it for "hit the pillow" in the sense above.

--
harles

[Horace LaBadie]

In article <46cc4a1a-87b4-4eba...@googlegroups.com>,

Yurui Liu <liuyur...@gmail.com> wrote:

> The problem is that we are not trying to find out how to express
> a thought, but to determine whether the phrasing 'purchase price'
> can express a particular thought.

It expresses whatever the buyer and the seller agree that it expresses.
That is the essence of any contract.

[John Holmes]

Yurui Liu wrote:
> CDB於 2014年12月19日星期五UTC+8下午11時32分34秒寫道：

>> It was "'he spent 100 dollars buying the
>> laptop' meaning he bought that laptop for 100 dollars".
>>
>> It's probably not the way native speakers would say it, but context
>> and common sense would make the meaning clear in most cases.
>
>
> So you've offered support for my suspicion that the sentence is
> unnatural on that particular reading?
>
> I guess the following sounds much better. What do you think?
>
> He spent $300 talking to the counsellor.

Usually, the paying and the talking would be separated in time. The way
you have put it, it sounds a bit like they are simultaneous -- hence
Horace interpreted it as the phone bill which is metered while you are
talking.

In full context, though, it could be clear that it has the meaning you
intend. This is always a problem when you quote a single sentence; if it
does not have the simplest phrasing that a native speaker would use,
then we will start looking for possible significance in the differences.

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

[Peter T. Daniels]

On Saturday, December 20, 2014 9:06:34 PM UTC-5, Yurui Liu wrote:

> I found the following sentence, and I was wondering whether
> the 'purchase price' can be understood to cover truly
> incidental costs such as the cab fare one pays to get to
> the car dealership.
>
> Over the years, the purchase price for a new car has risen
> significantly.

In real dollars (i.e. taking inflation into account) that's probably
not true anyway.

In real dollars, it seems unlikely that the proportion of cab-fare-like
expenses has increased at all, either.

[Peter T. Daniels]

On Saturday, December 20, 2014 11:52:36 PM UTC-5, John Holmes wrote:

> In full context, though, it could be clear that it has the meaning you
> intend. This is always a problem when you quote a single sentence; if it
> does not have the simplest phrasing that a native speaker would use,
> then we will start looking for possible significance in the differences.

You'd think everyone would be tired of telling him that by now.

[Yurui Liu]

Peter T. Daniels於 2014年12月21日星期日UTC+8下午2時17分02秒寫道：

Context is as convenient an answer as it is useless, unless it is
specified which context licenses which reading of a particular
sentence.

I don't think--and you haven't demonstrated-- that all- powerful context
could allow 'purchase price' to include cab-fare-like expenses.

[Peter Moylan]

I think you've missed seeing John's point.

When you present a sentence that is different from what a native speaker
would naturally say, our first reaction is to think "That doesn't sound
natural". Our second reaction is to dream up a context that would fix
the problem. This happens automatically. If you don't supply the
context, our brains try to supply a context.

--
Peter Moylan http://www.pmoylan.org

[pensive hamster]

On Sunday, 21 December 2014 02:42:28 UTC, Charles Bishop wrote:

> pensive hamster <pensive...@hotmail.co.uk> wrote:

> > (In psychiatry-speak, 'hit the pillow' means 'punch the pillow to
> > vent your anger, which should be cathartic'. In Mafia-speak,
> > 'hit' means kill.)
> >
> > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5wQeBLQ194
>
> While I won't say you're totally wrong, "hit the pillow" doesn't seem to
> be Mafia-speak, though it probably is close enough for the movie.
> Phrases like "put a hit on the pillow (put a hit on him), or "take out a
> hit on him" would be closer to what I think the phrasing would be. Of
> course, "He's going to hit him tomorrow" referring to a killing would be
> acceptable. I just don't hear it for "hit the pillow" in the sense above.

'Put a hit on him' or 'take out a hit on him' suggest to me that
someone is ordering that a certain victim be killed. The orderer
wouldn't kill the victim themselves, they would recruit an associate
or a hitman to do the deed. Similar to 'putting out a contract' on
a victim.

Also, the mafia tend to try and do things at arms length. So they
probably wouldn't say 'kill this guy', they would say something like
'we need some help with a little problem we're having'. That sort
of vague or ambiguous phrasing makes it more difficult for law
enforcement to build a case against any particular person.

So the mafia tend to use language in their own special way, perhaps
accompanying certain words and phrases with some kind of gesture
or a meaningful look, which wouldn't show up in a wiretap recording.

But I agree that a real mafia member probably wouldn't say 'hit the
pillow', or understand it in the sense above. The film is taking just a
teensy bit of artistic license with the authentic mafia patois.

[pensive hamster]

On Sunday, 21 December 2014 08:48:51 UTC, Yurui Liu wrote:
> Peter T. Daniels於 2014年12月21日星期日UTC+8下午2時17分02秒寫道：
> > On Saturday, December 20, 2014 11:52:36 PM UTC-5, John Holmes wrote:
> >
> > > In full context, though, it could be clear that it has the meaning you
> > > intend. This is always a problem when you quote a single sentence; if it
> > > does not have the simplest phrasing that a native speaker would use,
> > > then we will start looking for possible significance in the differences.
> >
> > You'd think everyone would be tired of telling him that by now.
>
> Context is as convenient an answer as it is useless,

It isn't a question of convenience. Context can and does modify
meaning, that's the fact of the matter.

> unless it is
> specified which context licenses which reading of a particular
> sentence.

Context doesn't license a particular reading, it helps to identify
which of a possible range of meanings could be the intended
meaning. It narrows down the options.

If you want to minimise the effect of context in modifying meaning,
you have to use language in a very careful and somewhat
laboured way, such as people do (not always successfully) when
drafting laws or legal contracts, or writing instruction manuals.

> I don't think--and you haven't demonstrated-- that all- powerful context
> could allow 'purchase price' to include cab-fare-like expenses.

In certain contexts, 'purchase price' could mean 'effective purchase
price' or 'the actual cost of acquisition' or 'total cost including
delivery and installation and testing.'

Language is never used in a vacuum. There is always some context.

[Charles Bishop]

In article <bd1eca95-7882-44cb...@googlegroups.com>,

"Peter T. Daniels" <gram...@verizon.net> wrote:

> On Saturday, December 20, 2014 9:06:34 PM UTC-5, Yurui Liu wrote:
>
> > I found the following sentence, and I was wondering whether
> > the 'purchase price' can be understood to cover truly
> > incidental costs such as the cab fare one pays to get to
> > the car dealership.
> >
> > Over the years, the purchase price for a new car has risen
> > significantly.
>
> In real dollars (i.e. taking inflation into account) that's probably
> not true anyway.

If it is true, and the cost of a new car today is higher than the cost
of a new car in 1960 (adjusted for inflation) then that could be
accounted for by the improvements in the cars since 1960.

It wouldn't surprise me that the inflation adjusted price was close to
that of 1960 because of production economies.

>
> In real dollars, it seems unlikely that the proportion of cab-fare-like
> expenses has increased at all, either.

Dunno.

--
harlees

[Charles Bishop]

In article <59afbeb7-7e4f-4976...@googlegroups.com>,

I agree with what you said.

Now what do we do with the time we won't spend arguing^W discussing?

--
;charles

[John Varela]

On Sun, 21 Dec 2014 11:50:59 UTC, pensive hamster
<pensive...@hotmail.co.uk> wrote:

> Also, the mafia tend to try and do things at arms length. So they
> probably wouldn't say 'kill this guy', they would say something like
> 'we need some help with a little problem we're having'. That sort
> of vague or ambiguous phrasing makes it more difficult for law
> enforcement to build a case against any particular person.

"Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest?"

--
John Varela