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In "The Importance of Being Earnest", what does 'Or they come in the evening, at any rate' mean?
In The Importance of Being Earnest, when Lady Bracknell asks Jack about his politics, he answers "Liberal Unionist". Here's the exchange:
Lady Bracknell: What are your politics?
Jack: Well, I am afraid I really have none. I am a Liberal…
Mdm22
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11
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Why does "The Five Orange Pips" devote an entire paragraph at the beginning to the case with the watch?
"The Five Orange Pips" opens with two rather large paragraphs. The first one describes that there are a lot of good cases. The second, however, goes into detail about one of these cases - 180 words that are almost entirely unrelated.
The year ’87…
Mithical
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Was Holmes written as a drug user in A Study In Scarlet?
In The Sign of the Four, Holmes is a drug user:
Sherlock Holmes took his bottle from the corner of the mantelpiece, and his hypodermic syringe from its neat morroco case. With his long, white, nervous fingers he adjusted the delicate needle and…
Mithical
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What were the original two results for 'died in a blogging accident'?
XKCD 369, "Dangers", mentions two results for 'died in a blogging accident':
But XKCD has messed up the Internet. Now there are a lot more results for 'died in a blogging accident' - 250k of them.
I tried a search using Google's fancy tools, to…
Mithical
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11
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Symbolism of the Mind Game in Ender's Game
I was recently discussing Ender's Game in The Reading Room, and I mentioned that I reread it because I felt that there were things that I had not understood. One of these things is the Mind Game.
According to the game's Wikia page,
The Mind Game,…
Shokhet
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11
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3 answers
Is there a name for the literary device in the expression "Thanks, I hate it."?
"Thanks, I hate it!" is an expression one could use to passive-aggressively indicate a strong dislike for something. What kind of literary device is used in this saying? Can this be considered an example of an oxymoron?
user19705
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11
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In Vanity Fair, what is the meaning of "my s—"?
For context, Mr. Osborne is angry with his son George; in this scene near the beginning of chapter 24, Dobbin has arranged a meeting with Osborne to convince him to reconcile with George.
At last Dobbin summoned courage to begin. "Sir," said he,…
Carmeister
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What specifically is being described as stupid and old-fashioned in this passage on arranged marriage?
I'm trying to rhetorically analyze a passage in Amy Tan's novel titled The Joy Luck Club, where a character, Lindo Jong, describes her experience with the arranged marriage process. I've included the passage below:
The matchmaker had bragged about…
user1499
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What does "vamos the ranch" mean in this Mark Twain short story?
What does this sentence from "Double Barrelled Detective Story" by Mark Twain mean?
"If I was running this shop I'd make him say something, some time or other, or vamos the ranch."
In Spanish, 'Vamos' means 'let's go' as far as I know. However I…
Batuhan Tas
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What does the clown mean by saying that brothels in the cities "shall stand for seed" in the second scene of "Measure for Measure"?
In act I, scene 2, of Measure for Measure, the clown uses the word seed:
Clow. All howses in the Suburbs of Vienna must bee
pluck'd downe.
Bawd. And what shall become of those in the Citie?
Clow. They shall stand for seed: they had gon down
to, but…
John Smith
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Did Poirot fabricate a fingerprint in "The ABC Murders"?
"I just can't believe it," said Meagan Barnard. "Could it be true?"
"It does explain why our murderer had two personalities," I said. "It's great that you got Clarke's fingerprint, Poirot"
"Yes, fingerprints are very useful," said Poirot.
"But I…
Yuuichi Tam
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What could be the meaning of "doctor-testing of little girls" by Steinbeck?
I was reading East of Eden by John Steinbeck, where I came across the sentence:
A man’s mind vagued up a little, for how can you remember the feel of pleasure or pain or choking emotion? You can remember only that you had them. An elder man might…
Pedro Gomes
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What "Irish Oath" sounds like "Thoth"?
In Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, the protagonist, Stephen Dedalus, has the following daydream while gazing at a flock of birds:
A sense of fear of the unknown moved in the heart of his weariness, a fear of symbols and portents, of the…
Matt Thrower
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Are the guardians of Dream's palace based on mythology? Are they symbolic?
In chapter 3 of Season of Mists (The Sandman #24), there are three creatures shown guarding the gates of Dream's palace (left). The lion refers to the whole group as "Gatekeepers" (p 20-21).
page 21 page 20
(click…
Shokhet
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Why does the Czech translation of "Till we have faces" mean the opposite?
The title of the book Till we have faces by C. S. Lewis is translated into Czech language as Dokud nemáme tvář. I would translate that into English literally as "While we don't have a face" or "Until we don't have a face", which is not very clear.…
TGar
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