I've got another question on English! Who's willing to help me out
By narsha
@narsha (466)
July 31, 2013 4:16am CST
She landed a plum job with a smart art gallery,so what does the "with" here mean? BIG THANKS!
2 responses
@Bluedoll (16773)
• Canada
1 Aug 13
Never heard "plum" before being used to describe. Using food is novel. If it was an "apple" job would it mean something else? I appreciate your explanation as well. Well done ole boy. :-)
I've read somewhere, it is a far better idea - than to work for a corporation rather have the corporation work for you. Well, I actually tried that once and it really did work for me!
In any case my choice of occupation might be in museum of nature or even if I was brave enough showing up in the museum of technology to employ myself with lofty pursuits.
@owlwings (43910)
• Cambridge, England
1 Aug 13
@narsha 'A plum [of a] job' is quite a common idiom. It's possible that its more common in England than in the US or Canada.
A "lofty pursuit" here refers to intellectual rather than manual work. 'Pursuit' is another euphemistic word which can be used to describe an occupation, job or work and implies that one is searching for knowledge or something like that. It can also refer to something which one does for the love of it rather than as a paid employment.
@owlwings (43910)
• Cambridge, England
31 Jul 13
One can say that one works 'for', 'in' or 'with' a company. Each one has a slightly different connotation with respect to the relationship one feels one has with the job.
When one works for a company, one is, ideally, working for the benefit of the company; when one works in a company, it stresses that one is part of an organisation or a team; when one works with a company, it implies that both you and the company have common aims but are, to some extent, independent.
The three are mostly interchangeable but each says something different about the relationship which the speaker sees him/herself to be in with the company he/she works for.
The sentence given avoids using the slightly dirty or menial word 'work'. To 'have a job with an art gallery' is more "upper class" than 'working for an art gallery'.
'Plum' here means something prized - probably relating to the rhyme 'Little Jack Horner' who put his thumb into a Christmas pie and literally 'pulled out a plum'.
'Landed' is a metaphor from fishing, where one 'lands' a fish when it is caught.