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"...with hardly any neck" | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Questions About Your Target Languages |  | |
| deHind Newbie Italy Joined 5544 days ago 7 posts - 7 votes Studies: English | Message 1 of 9 06 October 2009 at 10:34am | IP Logged | |||||
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What does the phrase "He was a big, beefy man with hardly any neck, although he did have a very large mustache." mean?
Is it about the neck as a part of a body? I thought about an idiomatic expression too, but it doesn't make any sense (at least to me). Edited by deHind on 06 October 2009 at 10:36am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Jimmymac Senior Member United Kingdom strange-lands.com/le Joined 6159 days ago 276 posts - 362 votes  Studies: Spanish, Mandarin, French | Message 2 of 9 06 October 2009 at 10:52am | IP Logged | |||||
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It means that his neck was almost non-existant.
You could say 'I've hardly got any money' which simply means 'I don't have much money' but it's slightly more exgerated. You could just as easily substitute hardly with barely and it would have the exact same meaning. Edited by Jimmymac on 06 October 2009 at 10:53am 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6445 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 3 of 9 06 October 2009 at 10:59am | IP Logged | |||||
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It's about someone with a small neck - probably a short neck, which seems even shorter because it's wide.
In English, this isn't an idiom, but it carries some connotations: it's said for people who look tough. They're usually muscular, with the large shoulder muscles being part of the reason the neck seems so short - this is explicitly mentioned by "big, beefy" in your example. There's often an implication of the person being very physical and unintellectual as well, but this has exceptions. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| deHind Newbie Italy Joined 5544 days ago 7 posts - 7 votes Studies: English | Message 4 of 9 06 October 2009 at 12:08pm | IP Logged | |||||
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That's very clear now, thank you very much for the explanation! =)
1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| ennime Tetraglot Senior Member South Africa universityofbrokengl Joined 5910 days ago 397 posts - 507 votes Speaks: English, Dutch*, Esperanto, Afrikaans Studies: Xhosa, French, Korean, Portuguese, Zulu | Message 5 of 9 07 October 2009 at 12:18am | IP Logged | |||||
oh you're reading Harry Potter!!! ^_^ 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| patuco Diglot Moderator Gibraltar Joined 7021 days ago 3795 posts - 4268 votes Speaks: Spanish, English* Personal Language Map | Message 6 of 9 07 October 2009 at 1:01am | IP Logged | |||||
Indeed it does! :) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Walshy Triglot Senior Member Australia Joined 6948 days ago 335 posts - 365 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, German | Message 7 of 9 07 October 2009 at 10:00am | IP Logged | |||||
Yep, I remember the German version: "Er war groß und bullig und hatte fast keinen Hals". Here they translated it as "almost no neck". 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| ennime Tetraglot Senior Member South Africa universityofbrokengl Joined 5910 days ago 397 posts - 507 votes Speaks: English, Dutch*, Esperanto, Afrikaans Studies: Xhosa, French, Korean, Portuguese, Zulu | Message 8 of 9 07 October 2009 at 7:34pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I'm reading the French books now ^_^
"C'était un homme grand et massif, qui n'avait pratiquement pas de cou," I guess it says here "who had practically no neck" ^_^ 1 person has voted this message useful |
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