Literary notes about indicates (AI summary)
The word "indicates" is used across literature as a connective tool that links explicit details to broader implications or underlying meanings. In technical or instructional contexts, it acts rather straightforwardly, telling the reader that a piece of information directly leads to a concrete instruction or explanation—as when it signals that a filename should follow on a command line [1] or specifies the tense of a verb [2]. In more interpretive or philosophical texts, it bridges observation with inference, suggesting that observable facts or qualities point to abstract ideas or general trends (as in connecting export figures to agricultural growth [3] or linking the nuances of language to mental capacities [4]). Additionally, in literary narratives the term sometimes carries an ironic tone, hinting at a subtle commentary or mockery, as exemplified by Lynch’s gesture in "Ulysses" [5]. Thus, “indicates” functions as a versatile signpost in literature, guiding the reader from specific details to their broader contextual or symbolic meanings.
- This indicates that the next thing on the command line is the name of the file to be created or the device to be used.
— from The Online World by Odd De Presno - The tense of a verb indicates its time.
— from An Advanced English Grammar with Exercises by Frank Edgar Farley and George Lyman Kittredge - s; but the exportation of 1,600,000 pounds in 1917 indicates that plantings have been steadily growing.
— from All About Coffee by William H. Ukers - “The very capacity of conceiving the sublime,” he tells us, xxii “indicates a mental faculty that far surpasses every standard of sense.”
— from Kant's Critique of Judgement by Immanuel Kant - Lynch indicates mockingly the couple at the piano.)
— from Ulysses by James Joyce
