hammer the nerve
English translation: belabor the point
| GLOSSARY ENTRY (DERIVED FROM QUESTION BELOW) | ||||||
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| 22:45 Nov 17, 2006 |
| English language (monolingual) [PRO] Art/Literary - Poetry & Literature / Spanish Civil War | |||||||
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|  Selected response from: Michael Barnett Local time: 08:56 | ||||||
Grading comment
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| SUMMARY OF ALL EXPLANATIONS PROVIDED | ||||
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| 4 +4 | belabor the point |
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| 5 | inflict this information into your heads |
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| 4 | cause undue pain/distress about a sensitive subject which is worrying you |
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| 3 +1 | over emphasize |
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| 3 | I don't want to be insensitive |
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| 3 | rock the boat |
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| 3 | overly rejoice you, make your nerve pounded with (good) news |
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| 3 | provoke a knee-jerk reaction |
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| 3 | "beating a horse to death" |
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Answers
6 mins confidence: 
I don't want to be insensitive Explanation: or, I don't want to step on anybody's toes --- I believe it is more about sensitivity of the issue than the writer's insistence. |
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1 hr confidence:
cause undue pain/distress about a sensitive subject which is worrying you Explanation: Imagine you have a toothache because the nerve is inflamed. Somebody hits it with a hammer or any object or just hits the painful area - then it going to make everything all that much worse. So basically, he doesn't want to make the whole situation worse or to inflame the situation so he is attempting to reassure the person. This expression is not in my book of 6000 idioms so I think it is somewhat invented thus open to interpretation, and slightly abstract. -------------------------------------------------- Note added at 1 hr (2006-11-18 00:21:19 GMT) -------------------------------------------------- The book of idioms gives: Touch/hit/strike a raw nerve. To upset someone by mentioning a subject that upsets them. So perhaps, he means he doesn't want to upset the person. |
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1 hr confidence:
rock the boat Explanation: I've never heard this expression before, and I googled it with 0 results. Within this context, it seems that it could either mean: I don't mean to repeat myself ("beat you over the head about it") or I don't mean to be controversial ("rock the boat") My tendency is to go with the second option, because the second part of the sentence begins with "but," indicating to me that the general mood at the White House was to believe that the repression of loyalists was in fact in full force; thus, by "rocking the boat," he is offering an opinion that differs from the prevailing one. kind of a creative and more emphatic version of "strike a nerve," as Anna Maria suggested. |
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2 hrs confidence:
overly rejoice you, make your nerve pounded with (good) news Explanation: My answer is basically contextual. My humble understanding is that the writer tried to calm the recipient of the letter that the situation was not as bad as the recipient might have thought. All the letter says are positive things: = no death sentence was carried out w/o reference = death cases had been exonerated/commutated = a fair trial with a well-defending lawyer. In the end, the writer culminated the letter with the most positive thing, i.e. the execution stories were only propaganda. In introducing this great positive, the writer somewhat wanted to be low profile by using "do not wish, but" construction. "I have NO WISH to hammer the nerve, BUT the stories are only propaganda" seems like to be: "I do NOT WANT to overly rejoice you, BUT these stories are only propaganda". |
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12 hrs confidence: peer agreement (net): +1
peer agreement (net): +1over emphasize Explanation: is how I read it |
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15 hrs confidence:
provoke a knee-jerk reaction Explanation: This is a pure guess, but 'hammering the nerve' sounds like a literal description of what a doctor does to check a reflex response (using a small hammer to cause a knee-jerk reflex is the most common example). 'Knee-jerk' is a common term in US political parlance (e.g 'knee-jerk liberal') and usually used a derogatory label to describe someone who (allegedly) always responds to a particular question or issue according to prescribed ideological principles. This is very similar to 'politically correct' in modern language. IMO this meaning, even in the figurative sense, doesn't quite fit here. Perhaps what the author meant is 'I don't want to try to gloss over the facts with an ideologically based stance, but... |
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19 hrs confidence: peer agreement (net): +4
peer agreement (net): +4belabor the point Explanation: http://www.answers.com/topic/belabor-the-point |
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Grading comment
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