1

Many years ago, on my way from Hongkong to New York, I passed a week in San Francisco.

What exactly does the phrase "pass a week" mean?

RegDwigнt
  • 97,231
abra
  • 295

2 Answers2

3

That perfectly natural American sentence is the beginning of Ambrose Bierce's short story Beyond the Wall. It means the narrator spent a week in San Francisco as a stopover while traveling from Hong Kong to New York.

For commentary on the “spending time” metaphor, see John Lawler's answers (1, 2) to the questions Single word for “time spent” and The difference between “take” and “last”.

Community
  • 1
James Waldby - jwpat7
  • 66,660
1

A more common way to say that is:

[...]I spent a week in San Francisco.

It simply means that the speaker stayed in San Francisco for a week between visits to Hong Kong and New York.

I have only heard this kind of phrasing from French speakers. A literal translation from French will yield the "passed a week" phrasing.

tenfour
  • 6,661
  • It doesn't sound awkward to me, but the rest of this answer is exactly correct. – TecBrat Aug 18 '12 at 19:36
  • I can't recall this wording being used by a native English speaker before. Could be regional? – tenfour Aug 18 '12 at 19:37
  • I found it in "Beyond the Wall" by Ambrose Bierce http://www.americanliterature.com/ss/featured/ssfeature.html – abra Aug 18 '12 at 19:43
  • 1
    Edited; is this really used in common speech? I have never heard it in the midwest or west coast. In Brussels I only hear it from non-native English speakers. I wonder if it's a slightly theatrical tint which often borrows nuances from French. – tenfour Aug 18 '12 at 19:48
  • Ambrose Bierce wrote at the end of the 19th century. It's not suprising he would use now-outdated language. – Chan-Ho Suh Aug 18 '12 at 19:58
  • 1
    Although saying things like, "I passed the time by playing solitaire." is still common. So if you can pass the time then one could ask, "How much time?" which then leads to, "I passed a week." – Jim Aug 18 '12 at 20:41
  • @Jim that's a good point, but I don't know anybody (I think) that would respond "I passed a week" in that situation. – Chan-Ho Suh Aug 19 '12 at 04:56
  • @Jim yes "Pass the time" is common, but the "leads to" logic does not really work in linguistics. – tenfour Aug 19 '12 at 07:12
  • 1
    @tenfour: I wasn't talking about linguistics, I was talking about conversation. – Jim Aug 19 '12 at 07:18