in good repair

[Bushwhacker]

Is A wall still in fairly good repair a wall in good conditions?

Thank You

 

[BobK]

:up::down: You've got the right idea, but it's in good condition[STRIKE]S[/STRIKE]. If it were in bad conditions, it might just be being rained on! ;-)

Also, though you may already know this (it's sort of implied by the word 'repair'), the wall has been repaired at some time. A newly-built wall wouldn't be called 'in good repair' - at least, not to my ear. What do other teachers think :-?

b

 

[euncu]

According to repair - definition of repair by the Free Online Dictionary, Thesaurus and Encyclopedia.

2. repair - a formal way of referring to the condition of something

I might understand that if we were to choose repair over shape, but what I can't understand how we could do it for the word "condition". "Repair" doesn't sound more formal than "condition" to me. I'd be glad to know what makes a word formal. I can tell some of them, particularly the ones with Latin origins. But "repair" seems too plain to be formal. Do we know them in our language learning process(not regardin if it is in native or foreign language process) ? or are there any rules to tell?

Thanks in advance for replies.

 

[BobK]

It's not that the word itself is formal; it's just that to say something is 'in [a] good [state of] repair' is more formal than to say it's 'in good condition'. What's "formal" is the collocation rather than the word. And don't regard 'formal' as meaning 'not usually used by ordinary people'; it doesn't.

b