what is the meaning of these two sentences?

[bubuna]

We were poor. We had no money. Our whole tribe was poverty-stricken. Every branch of the Garoghlanian family was living in the most amazing and comical poverty in the world. Nobody could understand where we ever got money enough to keep us with food in our bellies, not even the old men of the family. Most important of all, though, we were famous for our honesty. We had been famous for our honesty for something like eleven centuries, even when we had been the wealthiest family in what we liked to think was the world. We were proud first, honest next, and after that we believed in right and wrong. None of us would take advantage of anybody in the world, let alone steal.

1. what is the meaning of 'most amazing and comical poverty'?
2. What is the meaning of 'we had been the wealthiest family in what we liked to think was the world'? [ I find this sentence too complicated to understand. is it grammatically correct? what does it mean?]


Thank you

[Bill McCray]

On 7/17/2013 8:36 PM, bubuna wrote:
> We were poor. We had no money. Our whole tribe was poverty-stricken.
> Every branch of the Garoghlanian family was living in the most
> amazing and comical poverty in the world. Nobody could understand
> where we ever got money enough to keep us with food in our bellies,
> not even the old men of the family. Most important of all, though,
> we were famous for our honesty. We had been famous for our honesty
> for something like eleven centuries, even when we had been the
> wealthiest family in what we liked to think was the world. We were
> proud first, honest next, and after that we believed in right and
> wrong. None of us would take advantage of anybody in the world, let
> alone steal.
>
> 1. what is the meaning of 'most amazing and comical poverty'?

I don't think there's a clue in the paragraph to what that is meant to
mean. Apparently the poverty is special in some way, but I don't know
how. I'm interested in seeing what others may think.

> 2. What is the meaning of 'we had been the wealthiest family in what
> we liked to think was the world'? [ I find this sentence too
> complicated to understand. is it grammatically correct? what does it
> mean?]

Would you understand "We had been the wealthiest family in the world"?
This says that they didn't know that they were the wealthiest in the
world, but they liked to think that they were.

Bill in Kentucky

[John Varela]

On Thu, 18 Jul 2013 00:55:14 UTC, Bill McCray
<billm...@mindspring.com> wrote:

> On 7/17/2013 8:36 PM, bubuna wrote:
> > We were poor. We had no money. Our whole tribe was poverty-stricken.
> > Every branch of the Garoghlanian family was living in the most
> > amazing and comical poverty in the world. Nobody could understand
> > where we ever got money enough to keep us with food in our bellies,
> > not even the old men of the family. Most important of all, though,
> > we were famous for our honesty. We had been famous for our honesty
> > for something like eleven centuries, even when we had been the
> > wealthiest family in what we liked to think was the world. We were
> > proud first, honest next, and after that we believed in right and
> > wrong. None of us would take advantage of anybody in the world, let
> > alone steal.
> >
> > 1. what is the meaning of 'most amazing and comical poverty'?
>
> I don't think there's a clue in the paragraph to what that is meant to
> mean. Apparently the poverty is special in some way, but I don't know
> how. I'm interested in seeing what others may think.

It's a very strange usage.

> > 2. What is the meaning of 'we had been the wealthiest family in what
> > we liked to think was the world'? [ I find this sentence too
> > complicated to understand. is it grammatically correct? what does it
> > mean?]
>
> Would you understand "We had been the wealthiest family in the world"?
> This says that they didn't know that they were the wealthiest in the
> world, but they liked to think that they were.

The author is talking about a family history of eleven centuries. I
took it that hundreds of years ago they were the wealthiest people
in the whole world that they knew, but that world was limited to
perhaps a single valley.

--
John Varela

[John Dean]

"bubuna" <perfe...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:45ef8246-3656-49cc...@googlegroups.com...

It always helps if you can put quotes like this into context. As you know,
this is from a short story by William Saroyan about an Armenian family.
'most amazing and comical poverty' means that the degree of poverty was
severe and that things were so bad they were almost laughable.

'we had been the wealthiest family in what we liked to think was the world'

means the Garoghlanians had, at one time, been a very wealthy family and
were richer than anyone they knew. They had a conceit that the breadth of
their acquaintanceship constituted all the people who mattered, though they
knew there was a wider population. Hence 'what we liked to think was the
world' rather than 'what we thought was the world'

--
John Dean