I’m not sure what the context was around this question but I think that “What did you have on” vs. “What were you having on” are both acceptable for asking this question. They most likely chose to say “What did you have on” because it’s asking in past tense and sounds better than asking “What were you having on”. There are multiple ways to ask questions, and say phrases. Most of the time it really just up to the writer, in your case of your english book to pick which they want to use.
This exposition impractically catches the pith of New York City much superior to anything I will ever have the capacity to. As a Californian, I view New York as I envision a New Yorker in the Nineteenth Century would view California. The contemplation is practically outlandish. California is the boundlessness edged pool of a landmass. Its wide open meanders perpetually, forever of the open doors which it holds until the land drops into nothingness and the Pacific devours it.
New York then again, shouldn't exist. Many think of it as the zenith of human accomplishment, a mixture of humankind existing together with an enthusiastic feeling of a club, all living under the standard held high that drains, "New York." It is where ten million drums play to their own beat, yet all ring to a similar congruity.
Didion's involvement in the city echoes these tones. The city is undoubtedly a spot where a half year can transform into eight years, and a night out can transform into a marriage. Didion expressed, "It was an unendingly sentimental idea, the puzzling nexus of all affection and cash and power, the sparkling and short-lived dream itself."
This exposition goes about as Didion's adoration letter to the city, one that isn't composed starting with one captivated sweetheart then onto the next, yet rather as Socrates would keep in touch with Zeus in an incredible miracle of his god-like power. Didion sees New York as legendary Fate, culling and cutting the strings of life which would decide her way of presence. Didion drives home the thought that New York is a thought. It represents something. New York is synonymous with America.
Opportunity. Renewed opportunities. Acts of futility. It is the New Mesopotamia, the support of life held in its bin by the two streams which give it its separated liveliness. American contemporary articles endeavor to restore the sentimental nature which used to drive American writers like Whitman and Thoreau to compose, and she completes a magnificent activity of that. My inquiry is how does Didion's association with the city influence her life?
I think perhaps the quote is referring to the fact that we don't always gain recognition for our actions? Someone of equal status and beliefs could stumble upon the lottery of life just by simply being there, or an error, while we remain unrecognized and alone? <span />
A. Reduce the chance of injury in a collision
THIS ISN'T THE ANSWER, only adding on to the question. Excerpt: When I addressed the Congress on the 26th of February last, I thought that it would suffice to assert our neutral rights with arms, our right to use the seas against unlawful interference, our right to keep our people safe against unlawful violence. But armed neutrality, it now appears, is impracticable. Because submarines are in effect outlaws when used as the German submarines have been used against merchant shipping, it is impossible to defend ships against their attacks as the law of nations has assumed that merchantmen would defend themselves against privateers or cruisers, visible craft giving chase upon the open sea.
It is common prudence in such circumstances, grim necessity indeed, to endeavor to destroy them before they have shown their own intention. They must be dealt with upon sight, if dealt with at all. The German government denies the right of neutrals to use arms at all within the areas of the sea which it has proscribed, even in the defense of rights which no modern publicist has ever before questioned their right to defend. The intimation is conveyed that the armed guards which we have placed on our merchant ships will be treated as beyond the pale of law and subject to be dealt with as pirates would be.
Armed neutrality is ineffectual enough at best; in such circumstances and in the face of such pretensions it is worse than ineffectual: it is likely only to produce what it was meant to prevent; it is practically certain to draw us into the war without either the rights or the effectiveness of belligerents. There is one choice we cannot make, we are incapable of making: we will not choose the path of submission and suffer the most sacred rights of our nation and our people to be ignored or violated. The wrongs against which we now array ourselves are no common wrongs; they cut to the very roots of human life.