Hi!! Could you please confirm the literal meaning of the following sentence? GPT told me that the sentence is quite metaphorical, and it also provided me with its rephrased version. I'm very curious about the uses of "flint decades" and "individual gem", are they meaning the ways what GPT has interpreted?? I see "gem" has been frequently used in media. If it were used metaphorically here, then is this its only one figurative meaning?🙏🏻🙏🏻
"In the flint decades of the twentieth century, the individual gem could not be seen, but could be worked with fruitfully."
GPT: In the hard and harsh decades of the twentieth century, the single precious object (the individual gem) couldn't be clearly seen (maybe due to chaos or overshadowing), but people could still work with it in meaningful ways.