Breakdown of Сделайте воротник пошире, а этот шов — поуже.
а
and (contrastive)
этот
this [f: эта, n: это]
сделать
to do (perfective) / to make (perfective)
широкий
wide
узкий
narrow
воротник
collar
шов
seam
Questions & Answers about Сделайте воротник пошире, а этот шов — поуже.
How exactly does the prefix по- change the meaning of шире and уже here?
Adding по- to a comparative adjective softens its intensity. While шире means "wider" and уже means "narrower", пошире and поуже mean "a little wider" and "a little narrower". Using these forms is extremely common in requests to make the instruction sound gentler and less demanding.
Where do the base forms шире and уже come from?
They are the irregular comparative forms of the adjectives широкий (wide) and узкий (narrow). When forming attenuated comparatives, you simply attach the по- prefix directly to the existing comparative form, even if it is highly irregular.
Why is there a dash before поуже?
The dash indicates an omitted word, which is a standard feature of Russian sentence structure. To avoid repetition, the verb сделайте (make) is dropped in the second half of the sentence, and the dash takes its place to signal where the verb would be.
Why does the sentence use а for "and" instead of и?
The conjunction а is used to highlight a contrast. Since you are doing opposite things to different parts of the garment (wider for the collar, narrower for the seam), а emphasizes this contrast much better than и, which simply connects parallel or sequential ideas.
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