‘When’ and ‘after’

YOUR QUESTIONS ANSWERED By FADZILAH AMIN

COULD you please advise me on how to correctly use “when” and “after”?

1. When/after he dies, you will get all the money.

2. When/after she arrives, everyone starts to get busy.

3. When/after you left, I got lonely. – Nasir In all your sentences above, “when” and “after” are interchangeable conjunctions and are used to talk about one event or state of mind happening or coming into being after another.

In sentence 2, the later event, i.e. “everyone starts to get busy” probably happens immediately after the earlier one, i.e. “when/after she arrives” (she must be a strict “boss”!).

However, in sentence 1, “you” will not get all the money immediately “after he dies”. Even if “you” are the sole heir, the inheritance takes time to process.

In sentence 3, it is not clear how soon “after you left” that “I” got lonely, because the loneliness may take time to hit the person who is left.

“When” and “after” have other meanings even as conjunctions and are only interchangeable in sentences like the ones you provided. For instance, we cannot substitute “after” for “when” in a sentence like “When I was young, I used to be a sprinter.” where “when” means “during the time that”. Also, besides being a conjunction, “when” can also be an adverb and a pronoun; while “after” can also be a preposition, an adverb and an adjective.

Definitions and examples of the use of these can be found at:

oald8.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com

Mixed metaphor?

Here’s what seems to be a mixed metaphor from an online news site:

“Reviews were mixed as well. Just 51% were rated positive on the Rotten Tomatoes web site. But the New York Times’ A.O. Scott described that movie as “a mild lark disguised as a wild bender,” called it “a touching tribute to Thompson.”

What does the phrase in bold mean? – sm The expression “a mild lark disguised as a wild bender” does not use mixed metaphors, but two informal words, “lark” and “bender” to describe a film.

A “lark” is an informal word which means “an amusing adventure or escapade” (Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 2009) while a “bender” means “a period of drinking a lot of alcohol or taking a lot of drugs” (online Oxford Advanced American Dictionary).

So, by writing that the film is “a mild lark disguised as a wild bender,” the New York Times reviewer is saying that the film seems to be depicting a crazy lifestyle fuelled by alcohol and drugs, but what the main character gets up to are fairly harmless adventures and escapades.

The film in question is The Rum Diary, an adaptation of the late Hunter S. Thompson’s novel of the same name, based on the writer’s own experiences in Puerto Rico in the 1960s.

Thompson, who was also a journalist and a colourful character, drank a lot and took some drugs during most of his life.

Yet the film, with his friend Johnny Depp playing the main character, is said by the reviewer to be, as you quoted, “a touching tribute to Thompson.” You can find the NYT review here: movies.nytimes.com/movie/293303/theRum-diary/overview

How many spouses?

Which sentence is correct (assuming that each member has only one spouse):

1. The offer is valid for all members and their spouse.

2. The offer is valid for all members and their spouses. – Kmchoo The second sentence, i.e. “The offer is valid for all members and their spouses.” is correct.

If you were to write “each” in place of “all”, you can say “The offer is valid for each member and his or her spouse.”