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The wishing/ the missing
Message from a_limon posted on 04-06-2012 at 23:09:45 (D | E | F)
Hello!
Could you tell me please whattwo words "the wishing" means in the phrase?
"We sing songs for the wishing of those who are kissing,and not for the missing"
I think "the wishing" could mean:
1)the desire : We sing songs for the desire of the people who kiss us...
2)the people who make a wish : We sing songs for the people who make a wish of those who will kiss them.
3)the children the parents wish (kiss): We sing songs for the children of those parents who are kissing them.
I really don't know what it means. Every point seems OK to me.
Although the 3) seems more appropriate, because this song is devoted to the missing children. (the missing,the lost children)
Maybe,I'm wrong.
Here is the link to this song.
Link
Thank you in advance.
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Edited by lucile83 on 05-06-2012 07:40
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Message from a_limon posted on 04-06-2012 at 23:09:45 (D | E | F)
Hello!
Could you tell me please what
"We sing songs for the wishing of those who are kissing,and not for the missing"
I think "the wishing" could mean:
1)the desire : We sing songs for the desire of the people who kiss us...
2)the people who make a wish : We sing songs for the people who make a wish of those who will kiss them.
3)the children the parents wish (kiss): We sing songs for the children of those parents who are kissing them.
I really don't know what it means. Every point seems OK to me.
Although the 3) seems more appropriate, because this song is devoted to the missing children. (the missing,the lost children)
Maybe,I'm wrong.
Here is the link to this song.
Link
Thank you in advance.
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Edited by lucile83 on 05-06-2012 07:40
Layout
Re: The wishing/ the missing from bluestar, posted on 05-06-2012 at 16:00:56 (D | E)
Hello,
Here are the first four lines of the lyrics:
We pray for our fathers, pray for our mothers
Wishing our families well
We sing songs for the wishing, of those who are kissing
But not for the missing
Note the comma after "wishing" in the third line, which seems to be the same "wishing" referred to in the second line..so that one could rewrite the third line as follows;
"We sing songs for the wishing (our families well), >(we sing songs) of those who are kissing"
The sense of these lines would then be "We sing songs to celebrate our families, we sing songs to celebrate lovers ('those who are kissing')" but we forget the lost children."
I offer this with no confidence at all that it's right!
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Edited by bluestar on 05-06-2012 16:04
Re: The wishing/ the missing from a_limon, posted on 05-06-2012 at 18:42:11 (D | E)
Thanks a lot,bluestar. If there is the comma there, then you are right without any doubt.
What do you mean saying "I offer this with no confidence at all that it's right!"? You are not sure if there is the comma there, or what?
Tell me please which one of my suggestions (1-3) would be correct if there was no comma there? Is any chance that there is no comma there and one of my suggestions is correct?
Re: The wishing/ the missing from bluestar, posted on 05-06-2012 at 19:04:47 (D | E)
Hello,
The comma is there (check it out). What I meant was that because the language is so dense and "poetic", I couldn't be sure of the right interpretation. I think it's a mistake to consider line 3 in isolation from the previous two lines.
Re: The wishing/ the missing from a_limon, posted on 05-06-2012 at 19:28:25 (D | E)
bluestar,I understand you. But in lyrics of this song, I saw, the comma is absent. If it were there I maybe had not question..Where did you see it?
And one question more (not for this song): Could the word "the wishing" mean "those (people)who make a wish" or just "the people who are wishing"?
Re: The wishing/ the missing from a_limon, posted on 05-06-2012 at 19:33:50 (D | E)
Oh< yes, in this video I saw the comma, but in many other ones it is absent just like in the lyrics from the fansites.
Re: The wishing/ the missing from bluestar, posted on 05-06-2012 at 20:10:47 (D | E)
Hello,
If you have Google, put "The lost children lyrics" into the search engine. Don't forget the inverted commas..
I've never heard "the wishing" used to mean either those who make a wish or those who are wishing. Either use would be bizarre. The phrase is used more as an adjective e.g. the wishing well, the wishing chair.
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Edited by bluestar on 05-06-2012 22:15
Re: The wishing/ the missing from lucile83, posted on 05-06-2012 at 20:15:26 (D | E)
Hello a_limon,
I do hope you don't learn English from songs.
Re: The wishing/ the missing from a_limon, posted on 06-06-2012 at 01:03:22 (D | E)
Hello!
Lucile,
I don't learn English from songs. It's only in addition.
Bluestar,
when you answered me you
Could you tell me please what you mean under "the wishing" here. It's "the wish" (an inanimate object),not the people? (I mean similarity of using "the missing" for the people who are lost.)
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Edited by lucile83 on 06-06-2012 07:43
Re: The wishing/ the missing from bluestar, posted on 06-06-2012 at 10:25:38 (D | E)
Hello,
Well, I didn't write the lines, after all. I was just trying to make some sense of them.
I take it that "We sing songs for the wishing (our families well)" simply means "to wish our families well". It's a "poetic" way of saying it, but it is not strictly grammatical, which is why (I assume) Lucile doesn't want you to be learning English from songs.
It's an example of poetic license, where the writer is allowed to deviate from the normal rules in order to achieve a certain effect - so there are no lessons of grammar to be derived from these lines, in my view.
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Edited by bluestar on 06-06-2012 11:09
Re: The wishing/ the missing from a_limon, posted on 06-06-2012 at 13:41:15 (D | E)
Thank you, bluestar, for your help!
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