---
title: "A damp squib" (UK) means a disappointing failure, like a firework t… — Soft words for hard things: failure and mistakes · tree and pragmatics
description: "A damp squib" (UK) means a disappointing failure, like a firework that does not go off. Who acts: damp squib, firework. A sentence of the lesson «Soft words for hard things: failure and mistakes» of the euphemisms course of Mova's primary school with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every 
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/34-failure-and-mistakes/20/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [Euphemisms](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/) / [Soft words for hard things: failure an…](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/34-failure-and-mistakes/) / 20

# Soft words for hard things: failure and mistakes, sentence 20

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
"A damp squib" (UK) means a disappointing failure, like a firework that does not go off.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** damp squib, firework · **What happens:** mean, not go off · **To what, where:** disappointing failure

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of the lesson «Soft words for hard things: failure and mistakes» of the euphemisms course of Mova's primary school. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (damp squib, firework), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = school:euphemisms:034-failure-and-mistakes.lesson:20
# text = "A damp squib" (UK) means a disappointing failure, like a firework that does not go off.
# source = school lesson (ours)
# course = euphemisms
# lesson = 034-failure-and-mistakes.lesson
# annotation = Mova annot: Rust (en) → Haiku 5.5 (medium, Batches API) patches; gates UD 2.18; agreed by treeagree rules (Stanza, Trankit, spaCy trf): R6-punct-agree ×1, R7-rel-agree ×1
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	Agree=R6-punct-agree|Haiku=9:punct
2	A	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
3	damp	damp	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
4	squib	squib	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nsubj	_	_
5	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
6	(	(	PUNCT	-LRB-	_	7	punct	_	_
7	UK	UK	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	4	appos	_	_
8	)	)	PUNCT	-RRB-	_	7	punct	_	_
9	means	mean	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
10	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
11	disappointing	disappointing	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	amod	_	_
12	failure	failure	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	_
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
14	like	like	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	firework	firework	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	nmod	_	Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=12:appos
17	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	20	nsubj	_	_
18	does	do	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	20	aux	_	_
19	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	20	advmod	_	_
20	go	go	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	16	acl	_	_
21	off	off	ADP	RP	_	20	compound:prt	_	_
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- sa -->
- form: statement
- act: assert
- voice: narrator
- polarity: none
- teacher: kept the draft

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **mean** | present | a damp squib | a disappointing failure |  |  |  | like a firework | vn intend-61.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent failure=Topic |
| 2 | **not** **go off** | present · do-support | a firework |  |  |  |  |  | vn occur-48.3-2 «NP V ADV»: agent=Theme |

<!-- .note -->
One row per clause the reader finds. «not said here»: a role filled from the clause above. «roles by»: a VerbNet class and frame when one fits the verb, else the reader's rules on the tree.

<!-- div src -->

**Licence: [CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/)**, as the whole of Mova corpus 0.4, of which this treebank (the agreed school, `mova-school-agreed-en.conllu`) is part. The lessons were written for Mova's primary school. Sentence `school:euphemisms:034-failure-and-mistakes.lesson:20`.

**The tree:** Mova annot: Rust (en) → Haiku 5.5 (medium, Batches API) patches; gates UD 2.18; agreed by treeagree rules (Stanza, Trankit, spaCy trf): R6-punct-agree ×1, R7-rel-agree ×1. **The frames** are read from the tree by Mova's frames reader (`prag`) when this page is built, the lesson read in order, so a pronoun may be resolved from an earlier sentence.

See the [release 0.4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/releases/0.4/).

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [Soft words for hard things: failure an…, 18](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/34-failure-and-mistakes/18/)
- next →: [Soft words for hard things: failure an…, 21](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/34-failure-and-mistakes/21/)
- ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/34-failure-and-mistakes/)