pne: A picture of a plush toy, halfway between a duck and a platypus, with a green body and a yellow bill and feet. (Default)
[personal profile] pne

I can't remember whether "to draw the curtain" means "pull the curtains away from the window so that you can look out" or "pull the curtains together so that the window is covered".

dictionary.com, quoting AHD, says that "draw" means "To move or pull so as to cover or uncover something: draw the curtains." and dict.leo.org translates "to draw the curtain" as both "den Vorhang aufziehen" and "den Vorhang zuziehen".

Can it really have both meanings, then? That is, is "draw the curtains, please" ambiguous, so that you'd have to look at the current state of the curtains to ascertain what it is that is wanted?

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pne: A picture of a plush toy, halfway between a duck and a platypus, with a green body and a yellow bill and feet. (Default)
Philip Newton

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