Expert: Warren D. Miller - 2/5/2010

Question
Hello,
I want to make sure I'm using the expression "lost in a book/movie" correctly. Are the following sentences grammatically correct?
1. I was lost in the book.
2. I got lost in the movie.

Hello,
I want to make sure I'm using the expression "lost in a book/movie" correctly. Are the following sentences grammatically correct?
1. I was lost in the book.
2. I got lost in the movie.

Answer
Glen, you're giving yourself away when you Copy and Paste to the same posting. That is an insult to me, and I don't appreciate it. It tells me that you are sending the same message to multiple "experts." It's kind of like spamming, and I don't appreciate it.

The two sentences ARE grammatically correct. However, that doesn't mean that they make sense. To me, they don't. Let me explain briefly.

The word "lost" can me a person has lost her/his way--literally doesn't know where she or he is: "I got lost when I was hiking in the mountains." It can also mean not winning, as in an athletic contest--"The Saints lost to the Colts," for instance. It can also mean misplacing something, as in "I lost my keys." It can mean forsaking control of one's emotions, especially one's temper, as in "When I said that, she just lost it." It can mean an inability to understand something one is reading or hearing, as in "You lost me." And finally, it can mean a total diversion of one's attention to the point where one is not aware of the passage of time, as in "I got lost in the beautiful art at the museum."

To me, at least, the two examples you give come closest to that last definition. The first is closer than the second. It needs a few more words, however: "I didn't answer the phone because I was lost in the book I was reading." "I was lost in the book" is potentially meaningless.

Much more so, at least to me, is "I got lost in the movie." The problem here is that "a movie" can be not only a film or DVD, but also a place. Therefore, it starts to sound a little like the example I gave above about hiking in the mountains. Yet anyone who has been in a movie theater would have a hard time believing that someone could get lost in the large room.

Now, one COULD get "lost" in the beauty of a movie, just as one could get lose in the beauty of art in a museum. However, it would also require more words in order to convey your meaning. Even then, though, it's a stretch. You could say, "The music was so beautiful that I got lost in the movie." That's pretty tortured, I think, so I wouldn't recommend using it.

I'm glad to help you, Glen, but my expertise is in TECHNICAL writing, not in teaching English to those who are trying to learn it. I also don't appreciate being asked to spend my time on the same subject that you appear to be querying a bazillion other people about.

Therefore, I will not respond to future questions of this nature. I am sorry, but I don't get paid to do this, so I must confine donations of my time to the subjects for which I have registered. That does not include teaching English as a second language.

To try to help you help yourself--which is ALWAYS a good idea--I googled "learning English," and here are some links to websites that you might find helpful:

http://www.englishclub.com/learn-english.htm

http://www.learnenglish.de/

http://www.english-at-home.com/

English is a VERY hard language to learn. The best way to learn it is to be around people whose native language is English. It is must tougher to learn it from a distance.

I hope I've been helpful here, and I hope you understand the constraints under which I am working. English is a beautiful language, and I wish you the best of luck in learning it.

Take care--

Warren Miller