Bamtori  +  198226 Sat, 18 Feb 06 06:39 AM Anybody, please, explain this to me: In this sentence, "I have no idea what that means.", there's "about" or "of" before "what" and it was just left out?  Bamtori Joined on Mon, Jul 25 2005 Full Member 139

	milky  +  198238 Sat, 18 Feb 06 07:42 AM  Bamtori wrote: Anybody, please, explain this to me: In this sentence, "I have no idea what that means.", there's "about" or "of" before "what" and it was just left out?  No, nothing is left out. Sir, I don't know what "magnitude" means. Could you please explain? Same: Sir, I don't know what the meaning of "magnitude" is. Could you please explain? Sir, I don't know the meaning of "magnitude". Could you please explain? "What it means" and "what the meaning of it is" and "the meaning of" are the same. milky Joined on Thu, Jan 15 2004 Senior Member 3,149 Hume said that if we had perfect or complete descriptive knowledge of reality, we could not, by reasoning, derive a single valid "ought".

	paco2004  +  198257 Sat, 18 Feb 06 09:40 AM  Bamtori wrote: Anybody, please, explain this to me: In this sentence, "I have no idea what that means.", there's "about" or "of" before "what" and it was just left out?  Yes, you are right. The original collocation was "have no idea of what…"      (EX) The Romans have no idea of what good violin playing is (1815). This collocation is still used by some people but it has been rapidly getting obsolete since the beginning of the 20 century.       (EX) You've no idea what blister you look in that lid.(1928) So now people use "to have no idea" just like a transitive verbal phrase to mean "not to comprehend" and attach the wh-clauses directly to it. In books, we can come across "Do you have any idea what …?" and "Do you have any idea of what …?" with nearly equal frequencies.  But people online use the former twelve folds oftener than the latter. paco paco2004 Joined on Wed, Nov 17 2004 Senior Member 4,095 In Japan today even dogs are learning how to bow-wow in English. Clauses

	Bamtori  +  198264 Sat, 18 Feb 06 10:41 AM Paco, thank you so much for your answer. This question has been bothering me for a long time. I once posted a thread asking the same question and nobody answered me.  I'm happy now(^.^) Bamtori