Comment on Happy Birthday

• Cryophilia@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Idioms and phrasing in English are not.

  What’s the literal meaning of “his days are numbered”?

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  • nickiwest@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    There are multiple references to this in the Bible. This is the most uplifting one I found.

    Psalm 90 10 Our days may come to seventy years, or eighty, if our strength endures; yet the best of them are but trouble and sorrow, for they quickly pass, and we fly away. 11 If only we knew the power of your anger! Your wrath is as great as the fear that is your due. 12 Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom. 13 Relent, LORD! How long will it be? Have compassion on your servants. 14 Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love, that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days.

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    • Cryophilia@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      You think a person who doesn’t speak English has read the Bible in English?

      What’s the literal meaning of the words?

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  • BlackDragon@slrpnk.net ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    It means that you can place a specific number on the number of days left in a person’s life? I’m not sure I understand the question because the meaning of this one is pretty easy to see. Normally it is unclear when your death will be, but if someone tells you that your days are numbered they are implying that they possess the exact knowledge of what number of days you have left to live.

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    • Cryophilia@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      It means that you can place a specific number on the number of days left in a person’s life?

      Or the number of days since their birth? That’s the simpler explanation.

      “Those apples are numbered” = “we know how many apples there are right now”

      If you don’t know the context, you could easily assume that’s the meaning.

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      • BlackDragon@slrpnk.net ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        Or the number of days since their birth? That’s the simpler explanation.

        “Those apples are numbered” = “we know how many apples there are right now”

        No, that does not make equal literal sense to what I said. Because days that are in the past are gone, we don’t have them anymore. We refer to moving through time as “killing” time or as “losing” time, in English we don’t tend to think of the past as something we currently have. The future is something we have or will have, the past is something we had and no longer have.

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