Answer to Question #294336 in English for Faheem

Question

The meaning of any language symbol depends to an extent on the context in which it occurs. Here are two ‘narratives’ (a & b) that are rather vague because a lot of detail are missing, but in each group the mere collocation of the words that are here tells a sort of story.

a) …pain…clinic…doctor…examine…surgery… …hospital…nurses…preparation…surgeon…successful operation…quick recovery

b) …rocket…preparation…countdown…blastoff…orbit…splashdown…quick recovery…successful operation

The term successful operation and quick recovery occurs in both stories. Do these terms seem to have the same meaning in both of them? Explain.

Answer 1

The term successful operation is different in both stories. The first story is about a surgery that has to operate on a patient and the second story is about a rocket launch which is a goal for a group of people to complete the total process successfully which is termed as a successful operation.

The phrase quick recovery in first story means after the successful operation the patient is healing fast and responding positively to the surgery where as in the second story quick recovery means when the rocket comes down on the sea using parachute, the rocket was located quickly and recovered.