Glossary entry (derived from question below)
English term or phrase:
You’ve done very well for yourself
English answer:
You've been very successful
Added to glossary by
Catherine Bolton
Oct 18, 2004 15:07
20 yrs ago
3 viewers *
English term
You’ve done very well for yourself
English
Art/Literary
Cinema, Film, TV, Drama
Driver:
I am a fruiterer and a greengrocer. That’s my van and this is one of my roads.
Tom:
You’ve done very well for yourself, haven’t you?
Driver:
I don’t own the road. I didn’t say I owned the road. What I am saying is I have worked myself up in all the roads round here.
Tom:
I believe that. You’re doing it again. Just what are you on about?
Driver:
Private enterprise! It’s taken me ten years to work up this round and I’m not having anyone pushing in!
‘The Good Life’
I am a fruiterer and a greengrocer. That’s my van and this is one of my roads.
Tom:
You’ve done very well for yourself, haven’t you?
Driver:
I don’t own the road. I didn’t say I owned the road. What I am saying is I have worked myself up in all the roads round here.
Tom:
I believe that. You’re doing it again. Just what are you on about?
Driver:
Private enterprise! It’s taken me ten years to work up this round and I’m not having anyone pushing in!
‘The Good Life’
Responses
+8
2 mins
English term (edited):
you�ve done very well for yourself
Selected
you've been very successful
Simply means that the driver has developed his business into something profitable and successful. He's doing well in his career/business.
4 KudoZ points awarded for this answer.
Comment: "Thank you."
3 mins
Kurt Porter
Native in English
&
English
Experienced translator/interpreter
Native in: English
Works in: Russian to English, English to Russian, English, and 1 more.
Related KudoZ points
:
4
English term (edited):
you�ve done very well for yourself
Achieved a level of success
Accomplished something.
+2
3 hrs
It's a deliberate, humorous ambiguity...
- if I remember the episode correctly, Tom is arguing with the Fruiterer, because he(Tom) is trying to sell his home-grown vegetables by knocking on doors, and the Fruiterer is saying he already delivers to this road and therefore doesn't want Tom's competition ("I’m not having anyone pushing in!")
So, Tom deliberately misunderstands him by taking the Fruitere's words literally to make him angry/frustrated:
"That's my van" = "that van belongs to me"
but Tom then deliberately misunderstands "that's one of my roads" to mean "this road belongs to me" rather than "this is one of the roads on my delivery round" - so he says "You've done well for yourself" (if you own a whole road), making the Fruiterer say, in exasperation, "I don’t own the road. I didn’t say I owned the road"...
HTH
So, Tom deliberately misunderstands him by taking the Fruitere's words literally to make him angry/frustrated:
"That's my van" = "that van belongs to me"
but Tom then deliberately misunderstands "that's one of my roads" to mean "this road belongs to me" rather than "this is one of the roads on my delivery round" - so he says "You've done well for yourself" (if you own a whole road), making the Fruiterer say, in exasperation, "I don’t own the road. I didn’t say I owned the road"...
HTH
Peer comment(s):
| agree |
Jörgen Slet
1 hr
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Thanks!
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| agree |
Heidi Stone-Schaller
: plus the ambiguity of "worked myself up" which Tom takes to mean "get upset" ("you're doing it again")
15 hrs
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Thanks - yes, that's right, that came up in the other question
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