• Illiterate Domine
    link
    English
    2
    edit-2
    6 months ago

    Oh, yeah. Language is just fun to observe because its easy to not notice.

    I understood it to mean “the end of something”, though I guess “repeating the game” might be more concrete. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ It’s poetry.

    • @theUnlikely@sopuli.xyz
      link
      fedilink
      English
      126 months ago

      I think you’re getting stuck on the “game over” part. This by itself does mean “the end of something” But “start over” is a separable phrasal verb that means “to begin again”. So you can say “Let’s start over” or “Let’s start the game over”.

      I always felt a little bad for ESL students who just discovered phrasal verbs because they’re basically a whole new set of often nonsensical verbs to learn.

      • kase
        link
        fedilink
        16 months ago

        If you go by what my high school teachers taught me, grammatically the phrase should ‘technically’ be “start over the game,” but nobody speaks like that.

        I say this because there are plenty of grammar “rules” that nobody follows that are still taught in schools. I don’t know if ESL students learn them too, but if they do it’s gotta be hella confusing