Word Pronunciation & Dictionary

you can't go home again

Word Rarity Common

Frequency: Zipf frequency 5.21 in modern English

Syllables: you -can't -go home- a-gain
IPA

30

Scrabble Score

18

Letters

5

Syllables

12

Unique Chars

Meaning

proverb

Past times which are fondly remembered are irrecoverably in the past and cannot be relived.

Example Sentences

"The organizers of a surprisingly refreshing program called "Judson Dance Theater Reconstruction" know that you can't go home again. Instead, they have tried to re-create that home if ever so briefly—even if it was a home these same young organizers never knew."
"As novelist Thomas Wolfe (1930s, not 1960s, version) declared in one of his book titles, You Can't Go Home Again—because home isn't there anymore."
"The Americans have a phrase for it: you can't go home again. Once you leave, that is it. […] [H]is time has come and gone, as he confessed when he retired from Test cricket three years ago. And gone means gone."

Etymology

From the novel You Can't Go Home Again by Thomas Wolfe (1900–1938), published posthumously in 1940. Wolfe took the title from a conversation with the writer Ella Winter, who remarked to Wolfe: "Don't you know you can't go home again?" Wolfe then asked Winter for permission to use the phrase as the title of his book.

Phrases

genie is out of the bottle not in Kansas anymore there is no there there there's no point crying over spilt milk what's done is done yesterday is gone you can't step in the same river twice

Frequently Paired Words

genie is out of the bottle not in Kansas anymore there is no there there there's no point crying over spilt milk what's done is done yesterday is gone you can't step in the same river twice

Questions

What does you can't go home again mean?: Past times which are fondly remembered are irrecoverably in the past and cannot be relived.
Where does you can't go home again come from?: From the novel You Can't Go Home Again by Thomas Wolfe (1900–1938), published posthumously in 1940. Wolfe took the title from a conversation with the writer Ella Winter, who remarked to Wolfe: "Don't you know you can't go home again?" Wolfe then asked Winter for permission to use the phrase as the title of his book.

How to pronounce you can't go home again

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