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Thanks for your understanding.
Chris -- 2018-04-11
We’re not home-free, but we’re close, in my opinion.
You do the numbers and think that because you bought the house for $200000 and will sell it for $700000, you are home-free on any capital gains tax.
But they are home-free in the sense that once they come into the system, if they play by all the rules, they do not have to worry
[Newpaper section:] Family Finance [Headline:] Safe, but not home-free [in article:] today, even without burdensome mortgage payments, Harry and Paula (not their real names) are not financially home-free. This Boomer couple with semi-dependant children are finding it hard to prioritize
There is a subtle pronunciation difference for me which goes along with the presence or absence of a hyphen here: with the hyphen the stress is pretty even and may be a primary stress on “homeâ€: it cannot easily be stronger on “free†(though in some contexts it actually could be.) Without the hyphen either both words get a primary stress (almost making you want to write a comma between them) or the primary stress is on “freeâ€.
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The meaning difference is pronounced for me.
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“Be/get home free†means to arrive safely at a permanently safe destination (metaphorical or otherwise). The “free†may refer, especially with “beâ€, to one’s state at the end of the process (free of former dangers and restrictions, and/or from incurred debts). Or it may refer (especially with “getâ€) to the manner in which one arrived (without paying the normal price to get there). “Be home-free†can only mean “lacking (that negative possession) a homeâ€â€”perhaps a creative way to describe a divorcee or one who has unloaded a lemon of a house onto some poor buyer.
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The first is parallel to “get out of jail free†or “free and clearâ€. The second is parallel to “cancer-freeâ€.
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But that’s not how these people are using the word/phrase.
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Does it strike the rest of you as odd? Are they making a mere orthographic mistake, or do you suppose they would pronounce them as I described them above?
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
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