“Have you looked for something that is right in front of you? You searched high and low to find it while the object was in an obvious place,” My friend Nadia asked.
I knew Nadia from work. Both of us are linguists, but we work in different departments.
“Many times, Nadia, I once spent half an hour searching for my glasses, only to be told that I was wearing them,” I replied.
“But why are you asking?” I followed
“You see, today at work my fellow linguists analyzed a text focusing only on direct meaning,” Nadia said.
“What’s wrong with that?” I asked.
“They overlooked the hidden message while it is right in front of their eyes! How could they?” Nadia said with frustration.
“Did you try to bring it to their attention, perhaps, they missed it?” I said.
“You see, they shouldn’t miss it, to begin with. Using verbal nouns in criminal statement should have been analyzed and examined,” Nadia said
“In what way?” I asked.
“Mishka, you know verbal nouns mean that the action isn’t limited to time, which different a verbal noun from a verb. The verb has a tense, past, present, or future. But a verbal noun is limited to time. It is continuous,” Nadia explained.
“You were examining a criminal content?” I asked.
“Yes, using verbal nouns means the action will keep accruing which poses a higher level of threat,” Nadia explained.
