| Hi Stephen,
ILH didn't say anything wrong, its you who made the mistake, its not "should JS uses evening instead of night" its "had JS used the word evening instead of night then the sentence would have had a different touch." And according to the first definition in Webster, evening is the latter part and close of the day and early part of the night (this is the most widely accepted definition, not the bedtime). The other thing wrong about what you said was, there is no morning or evening in chinese which isnt true, and is not irrelevant to what ILH was saying. Because the word night had nothing to do with the misunderstanding, it is adding "spent" before night that made the difference. As ILH pointed out, Jianshuo could have also said "I met some of my good friends in a teahouse at Lujiazui in Shanghai last night". And finally what if it is was really night as in after 12am or even 2 am? It wasnt the word night but the word structure that gave it a different meaning. My first impression when I read "I spent the night" was that he slept overnight at Lujiazui in Shanghai (weird as it might have been) and also not what Jilin misconstrued as "sleeping with someone". Just my 2 cents Jason |
Tea House vs Coffee Shop