How would you interpret the noun ‘knife’ in the first sentence?
I think it’s a dagger because he was in the army, though he served as an ambulance driver.
Or was it a pocket knife because he used the verb ‘open’ in the following clause?
the context:
I took out my knife, opened it, wiped off the blade and pared off the dirty outside surface of the cheese. Gavuzzi handed me the basin of macaroni.
Search from various English teachers...
Answers · 11
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It must be a pocket knife.
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Gordon, it is very clever of you to have done this logical deduction. If you look up the images and history of the "Swiss Army Knife", you will find that it is also a logical possibility and it fits the verb "opened" better.
Here is the opening paragraph from the Wikipedia entry on the Swiss Army Knife: "The Swiss Army Knife is a pocket knife or multi-tool manufactured by Victorinox AG (and up to 2005 also by Wenger SA). The term "Swiss Army Knife" was coined by American soldiers after World War II due to the difficulty they had in pronouncing "Offiziersmesser", the German name."
If you look up the entry on "dagger", you will find that the dagger was more a symbol of the Fascists, though soldiers of other nationalities, including the British Commando and the US Commando, used daggers. Here is what Wikipedia says, "Daggers achieved public notoriety in the 20th century as ornamental uniform regalia during the Fascist dictatorships of Mussolini's Italy and Hitler's Germany."
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It's definitely a kind of knife that "opens," as you said. So I'd guess a pocket knife. Not a dagger.
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It could be both. If you look at this video at about the 4:40 timestamp, you can see him open this flip-knife which has a dagger like blade - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0eKNL-dQR_Q - something like this might be what the author is referring to.
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Charles Ryder's *father
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