- Does Heather mean 'chilling' as in the verb (they are chilling, maxing, relaxing) or as in the adjective (some implied thing, the vibes perhaps, are 'chilling'; they cause dread)? Or is it ambiguous?
- How does our reading of the post change if we adopt one interpretation or the other?
- How do these two seemingly opposed senses of 'to chill' and 'chilling' relate to one another? Can you come up with a hypothesis about why they originate from the same word?
Teacher, aren't those both derived from the original meaning, which is "to become cold?" What if Heather is simply reducing their temperature? Perhaps you chose to refrain from mentioning this as a possibility because it implies the answer to Question Three, but regardless, it renders the initial question conspicuously incomplete.
Good question! As it happens, we can eliminate that possibility right away. Let's look at Heather's original text again:
chilling
Now, as we can see, the word 'chilling' sits here alone, as a whole utterance. This leads us to think that 'chilling' is being used as either an intransitive verb, or as some other part of speech entirely. The literal sense of 'to chill', means to make [something] cold, and thus takes an object. "I'm chilling this gazpacho before serving," for example.