This enables farmers to douse fields with the weedkiller in a single go, thus offering substantial savings.

My comments:

Go is colloquial for an attempt at doing something, a try. Having a go at something means having one try at it. If you, for example, had five goes at your driving test before passing and securing a driving license, you took five tests in all.

In other words, you had to do it five times.

In one single go, on the other hand, means you finish the job in one attempt. At birthday parties, for instance, we see people blow out up to a dozen candles at one go. That means they are able to blow out all the flames in one single breath.

In our example, this (particular machine) is so good that it allows you to douse fields with the weed killer “in one single go”, meaning you do it once and once for all.

No going back and forth, back and forth, as before.

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Go to Zhang Xin's column

本文僅代表作者本人觀點(diǎn)，與本網(wǎng)立場(chǎng)無(wú)關(guān)。歡迎大家討論學(xué)術(shù)問(wèn)題，尊重他人，禁止人身攻擊和發(fā)布一切違反國(guó)家現(xiàn)行法律法規(guī)的內(nèi)容。

About the author:

Zhang Xin（張欣） has been with China Daily since 1988, when he graduated from Beijing Foreign Studies University. Write him at: zhangxin@chinadaily.com.cn, or raise a question for potential use in a future column.