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2010年8月30日 星期一

I am confused

I am confused with the sentence "We will stand up for our dead friends and their families, and will hold responsible those who wronged."

Here, wrong is a verb. What is the meaning of "wrong" when we use it as a verb?

When we look up the Oxford Advanced Learner's English-Chinese Dictionary, it means "to treat somebody badly or in an unfair way" (被冤枉). It is usually used in passive voice and is followed by a noun phrase. However, it is active voice in our case.

According to Merriam Webster dictionary, wrong is a transitive verb and means to do wrong to somebody. It is usually used in active voice but it is associated with an object. Therefore, I guess that it should be "who wronged them".

Besides that, what is meaning of "hold responsible"? There are two main distinct meanings. One is to assign and another one is to blame = to place responsibility. According to the case, it should mean to blame. However, it is normally followed by a preposition for.

I guess the sentence should probably be "We will stand up for our dead friends and their families, and will hold responsible for those who wronged them."

Maybe we can simply say, "We will stand up for our dead friends and their families, and will hold responsible for those who are in the wrong."

In Chinese, 為了逝世的朋友及其家人,我們會挺身而出,指責那些犯了錯的人。

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