1.He said this to a group of journalists covering military affairs.
What's "covering military affairs" for here in this sentence?
2.The officer went on to offer a pessimistic view on the current strategy against extremists will make lasting gains.
What does this mean?
I am an English learner.Please help,Thank you.
2007-10-13 00:37:20 · 4 answers · asked by Gone Car 1 in Society & Culture ➔ Languages
" will make lasting gains"
what does it mean in the sentence?
2007-10-13 00:56:07 · update #1
The second sentence seems grammatically incorrect to me. The words "will make lasting gains" do not fit into the sentence correctly. If there was a full stop after the word "extremists, then there would be full a full sentence ie "The officer went on to offer a pessimistic view on the current strategy against extremists". That makes sense. I don't know what they are trying to say with the last four words.
Edit: Perhaps the second sentence could read "The officer went on to offer a pessimistic view THAT the current strategy against extremists will make lasting gains." That would make more sense and would mean that the officer doesn't think that what they are doing at the moment will make a difference to the extremists in the long-term.
2007-10-13 01:19:55 · answer #1 · answered by Xai 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
"Covering" Means observing and reporting. The current strategy will make lasting gains" or does The officer went on to offer a pessimistic view about the current strategy? Newspaper Editors and Reporters Covering the story move sentences around for the allotted size column in the paper. Some times sentences get broken up proof readers miss the errors. Good I am glad your learning English. Even Americans born here have a hard time with sentence structure and word meaning. Just remember there are no hard rules and you will find mistakes in newspapers magazines and especially Internet.
2007-10-13 07:52:02 · answer #2 · answered by John Paul 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
1>
To 'cover' something for a journalist means that their job is to be an expert on that topic and write multiple stories about it.. 'military affairs' just means things having to do with the military.. so a reporter 'covering military affairs' would go to all the military news briefings and use their knowledge as an expert in the subject to write in depth stories about the military.
2>
a person with a 'pessimistic view' believes that things will end up badly. 'lasting gains' refers to having success over a long period of time.. So a pessimistic view about lasting gains means that while they may have some success now (the gains) that in the end things will be bad.. he thinks that over the long term they will fail..
2007-10-13 08:14:04 · answer #3 · answered by TeknoKid 6 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Covering military affairs simply means that the journalist is writing the news that deals with the military. anything that the Army, Navy, Air force.. does.
The second phrase means that officer thinks that what he is being told won't work. A "pessimistic view" means that you don't agree with it.
My take on the second phrase would lead me to believe the officer thinks that he is being asked to do something that will not help in the long run.
2007-10-13 07:44:12 · answer #4 · answered by wildwillyinva 4 · 1⤊ 0⤋