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請教:grammar of 'run naked'


Kenny同志

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I would just call these participles, modifying the subject or object as context dictates. I haven't yet found a good term for this kind of usage, though.

"He ate his toast cold" - The toast was cold when he ate it

"He went to bed cold" - He was cold when he went to bed.

Oops, look at the first sentence again. It's possible the writer meant the person was cold, not the toast. This might be called a dangling participle, in which the target of the modifier is not clear. Another example: "We saw the Grand Canyon flying to California."

The "think different" example is murkier. It would make more sense to call this a type of flat adverb, in the style of "think fast" or "study hard". The Wp article on the slogan quotes Steve Jobs as intending different as a noun (!), as in "think victory" or "think beauty". That's certainly a colloquial usage. It helps me to understand that intention the way an excited talker might say it: You think a job in the mailroom will cut it? No, think bigger! Think different! Think...presidential!

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