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Christophe Grandsire scripsit:
> > already drive me to distraction in Spanish,
>
> A distraction? It's an extremely simple, useful and logical distinction, much
> simpler than French pour/par distinction. How can it be a distraction?
"Drive me to distraction" (note no article before "distraction") is an
idiom meaning "drive me crazy". "Distraction" is here a nominalization not
of "distracted" but of "distraught", which has the same origin but means
"emotionally overwrought".
--
John Cowan http://www.ccil.org/~cowan cowan@hidden.email
To say that Bilbo's breath was taken away is no description at all. There
are no words left to express his staggerment, since Men changed the language
that they learned of elves in the days when all the world was wonderful.
--_The Hobbit_