I love to go out dancing. (OALD)
When I came across this sentence, I recollected the man, Cheo Yong, who saw four legs on his bed over 1,130 years ago, when he came back late. After that, singing “two are mine, two are who’s? Though originally mine, what should I do, after deprived,” he went out, dancing. (This song very famous, every Korean middle school student learns the old lyrics in Korean text books.)
But I can find ‘go out dancing’ is interpreted, on Korean websites, into ‘go outside to dance.’ Is it an idiom? Can the sentence in OALD be interpreted ‘go outside, dancing,’ as the dancing of the doomed guy who saw four legs in A.D.879.
Best Answer
In general, going out will be interpreted as "go (out of my house) to a place where people have fun". I can go out eating (to a restaurant), go out dancing (to a club, or when you are my age, a disco), go out drinking (to a bar).
As a general statement, this is the only common interpretation: the sentence describes a habitual act, not a specific situation.
Context changes everything though:
Means indeed I went out while, at the same time, I was dancing: I cha-cha'd my way to the door, I waltzed out of the room, I quickstepped out or I tangoed into the hallway. In that last instance, obviously I am not the only one leaving the premises, because, as J.R. notes in the comments, it takes two to tango
Describes my liking of actually going outdoors to dance in the open. (No, I don't do that, really.)
This is ambiguous, but the mention of the room indicates I may actually leave the room while showing off my sense of rhythm to the insulted. It could also mean I like to go to a club after the insults are delivered. Unless you get to know me better, you can never be sure...