What does this expression mean (the Cambrige dic. didn't help ;)?
'a tall question'
What is the context? It probably means a question that is difficult to answer.
Never heard of it. Is it somehow related to "a tall order" (a difficult or unreasonable request)?
All we can do about this one is to hazard a guess - my dictionaries don't help either but as has been suggested - one with no definitive answer.
A tall order has already been mentioned - but we also have "tall story" or "tall tale" - stories or tales which bear little or no credibility.
With a bit of luck you could also have a tallboy (not normally two separete words or even hyphenated) in your bedroom......but no, it's not that kind of one - this one is made of wood, usually comes in two sections and is fitted with drawers.
A tall order has already been mentioned - but we also have "tall story" or "tall tale" - stories or tales which bear little or no credibility.
With a bit of luck you could also have a tallboy (not normally two separete words or even hyphenated) in your bedroom......but no, it's not that kind of one - this one is made of wood, usually comes in two sections and is fitted with drawers.
>> With a bit of luck you could also have a tallboy (not normally two separete words or even hyphenated) in your bedroom......but no, it's not that kind of one - this one is made of wood, usually comes in two sections and is fitted with drawers.
Never heard of 'tallboy' either. I looked up the definition in my dictionary and it said "n. Chiefly British, a highboy". Now that's what I know it as-- a highboy.
Never heard of 'tallboy' either. I looked up the definition in my dictionary and it said "n. Chiefly British, a highboy". Now that's what I know it as-- a highboy.
A tall question is the perception a question has about itself when answered with a short answer.
"Are you mad?"
"Yes, I am."
The question starts feeling tall...
Had the answer been "Yes, I am very mad, on the verge of going berserk", the question would just have been blown off.
Now, let's try something else.
The term "tall tale", which Damian mentioned, refers to an unreliable, exaggerated story aimed at augmenting one's fame.
L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology, was very fond of telling tall tales about himself. Adventures in dangerous places, war memories, trips to exotic places, et cetera, et cetera. He could go on and on and on emptying his inexhaustible trove of anecdotes before his audience. Some stuff ws true, some other was not.
Could the phrase "tall question" be related to "tall tale"? A tricky question, maybe. Or a question you are asked so to let you answer it by saying something very cool about yourself, a question posed by your "wing", i.e. a friend with whom you are in cahoots.
Well, I don't know.
Actually, "a question that is difficult to answer", as an anonymous user suggested a few postings above, is the first thing I thought myself, and a search in Google on "tall question" indicates the meaning of the phrase could be that very one.
After all, an apple lodged way up high in a tree can be hard to grab, right? Similarly, the answer to a tall question may not be very easy to grasp.
Here's some of what I came up with thanks to the search engine:
“Can we make connections between seemingly dissimilar molecular events to piece together the complex aging process? That is a tall question, but there may be experiments performed and published in the literature that look at smaller subsets of the problem.” [http://vtnews.vt.edu/story.php?relyear=2006&itemno=504]
"But how anyone can hate a movie blessed with the presence of Cushing is a tall question indeed." [http://amazon.com/review/R2DITGMT2U7FVX]
"Sigh. That's a tall question. There are many many many many things aides can do in general. There are a WIDE variety of perceptions on what aides can and cannot do." [http://forums.atozteacherstuff.com/showthread.php?p=761087]
Using the 'net as a mondo big linguistic corpus. Isn't it a terrific tool to learn a language?
Goof the floof,
Achab
"Are you mad?"
"Yes, I am."
The question starts feeling tall...
Had the answer been "Yes, I am very mad, on the verge of going berserk", the question would just have been blown off.
Now, let's try something else.
The term "tall tale", which Damian mentioned, refers to an unreliable, exaggerated story aimed at augmenting one's fame.
L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology, was very fond of telling tall tales about himself. Adventures in dangerous places, war memories, trips to exotic places, et cetera, et cetera. He could go on and on and on emptying his inexhaustible trove of anecdotes before his audience. Some stuff ws true, some other was not.
Could the phrase "tall question" be related to "tall tale"? A tricky question, maybe. Or a question you are asked so to let you answer it by saying something very cool about yourself, a question posed by your "wing", i.e. a friend with whom you are in cahoots.
Well, I don't know.
Actually, "a question that is difficult to answer", as an anonymous user suggested a few postings above, is the first thing I thought myself, and a search in Google on "tall question" indicates the meaning of the phrase could be that very one.
After all, an apple lodged way up high in a tree can be hard to grab, right? Similarly, the answer to a tall question may not be very easy to grasp.
Here's some of what I came up with thanks to the search engine:
“Can we make connections between seemingly dissimilar molecular events to piece together the complex aging process? That is a tall question, but there may be experiments performed and published in the literature that look at smaller subsets of the problem.” [http://vtnews.vt.edu/story.php?relyear=2006&itemno=504]
"But how anyone can hate a movie blessed with the presence of Cushing is a tall question indeed." [http://amazon.com/review/R2DITGMT2U7FVX]
"Sigh. That's a tall question. There are many many many many things aides can do in general. There are a WIDE variety of perceptions on what aides can and cannot do." [http://forums.atozteacherstuff.com/showthread.php?p=761087]
Using the 'net as a mondo big linguistic corpus. Isn't it a terrific tool to learn a language?
Goof the floof,
Achab
Well, I've heard of tall tales, tall orders, and even tallboys, but I had never heard of a "tall question" before!
My understanding is that a tall boy is one of those beer cans that are extra large.