JAKE: Where should we take a vacation this year? Let’s decide soon.
MELISSA: Well, I’d like to go somewhere warm. How about the beach? Or we could rent a cabin on the lake.
JAKE: You want to go to the beach, again? I want to ski this winter. How about a compromise? What about
traveling to the Alps in Europe next April? We can find a ski resort on a lake.
MELISSA: Oh, we’ve never been to Europe before! But I don’t know if it will be sunny and warm then. I need to do some research first. That will help me make up my mind.
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LANGUAGE NOTES
• Decide is a useful verb to express choice. The idiom “to make up my mind” also means “to decide”: “There are so many choices in this menu. It’s going to take awhile to make up my mind/decide.” You can finish this sentence with either the idiom or the verb “decide.”
• How about This phrase presents an alternative. This phrase can be followed by a subject plus a conjugated verb or by a noun: How about we go swimming? / How about a movie tonight?
• Many verbs express opinions: to think / to believe / to suppose / to assume, etc. They are not all synonymous. For example, “to suppose” and “to assume” express that the speaker has a preconceived idea: He came back late from work, so I assumed that traffic was bad. /I suppose that may not have been the case, and that he might just have had a lot of work.
