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From: "Jim Heckman" <wnzrfeurpxzna@lnubb.pbz.invalid>
Newsgroups: alt.languages.english
Subject: Re: What does it mean? "little did I expect" ...
Date: Wed, 24 May 2006 03:39:57 GMT
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On 23-May-2006, "compunk" <compunk@chol.com>
wrote in message <1148424081.336406.303230@i40g2000cwc.googlegroups.com>:
> Hi.
> What does it mean?" Little did I expect "
>
> Here is the exemple :
>
> Little did I expect it might be so easily tracked in its impact. People
> want to complain about the exit polling in terms of the rollercoaster
> ride Tuesday night, but that's not what exit polling is all about. It's
> about helping figure out subtle influences like this one.
It's a poetic way of saying "I did not expect ..." This
construction is very old-fashioned, and nowadays is pretty much
restricted to verbs like "expect", "realize", "suspect", "think",
etc., involving some sort of mental activity.
The word order is always "little [(first) auxiliary] [subject]
[rest of verb phrase] ...", for example "little does he realize
...", "little has Mary suspected ...", "little will they be
thinking ..." Note that one must use the auxiliary "to do" in the
'simple' present and past tenses; you can't say *"little I expect"
or *"little I expected".
--
Jim Heckman
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