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Re: Just a log (English, Italian)
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Re: Just a log (English, Italian)
aaleks wrote:I'd write it like:
Whatley consulted one of a dozen clipboards hanging on the wall behind him, and Caitlin realized for the first time that he hadn't even switched his computer on.
The way you wrote it sounds much better to me. The way it was written originally sounds awkward to me, almost as if something is missing from the sentence. I would write it exactly the way you did in this example.
Another thing to keep in mind is that there are multiple ways to phrase an idea. Just because you would have chosen to write the sentence differently doesn't mean you would be wrong.
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Re: Just a log (English, Italian)
aaleks wrote:"She started to move for the door, then stopped."
Why "started to move" but not "started moving"? Is it because of the second part "then stopped"? And what the difference for a native speaker between "to do" and "doing" in that kind/type of sentences. It seems that confusing these two is one of my most persistent mistakes, close to so-called fossilized ones.
"She started to move for the door, then stopped" really means the same thing as "She moved toward the door, then stopped."
You could say it either way. "She started to move" gives the feeling that she only took a step or two towards the door, but didn't get very far while "She moved toward the door, then stopped" doesn't give any idea about how close she got to the door.
So my assumption is that the author chose "She started to move" to emphasize the fact that she almost immediately changed her mind about going to the door.
The author could have also written, "She started moving for the door, then stopped." This is a case where there are multiple ways to say the same thing. If you'd chosen to write it like this, it wouldn't have been wrong. And I think this might be at the heart of the problem; I think that since you would have written this sentence in a different way, you automatically assume that your way would be wrong, but it wouldn't be; it's really more about the author making a different, yet equally valid choice in how to describe the scene.
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Re: Just a log (English, Italian)
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Re: Just a log (English, Italian)
aaleks wrote:rfnsoares wrote:"Whatley consulted one of a dozen clipboards hanging on the wall behind him, Caitlin realizing for the first time that he hadn't even switched his computer on."
OK, I think I understand the sentence more now. I believe that the author is trying to show that both of these events are happening simultaneously. You don't need to use "was realising" or another additional verb. I had this discussion with an Italian speaker just today about answering the phone in English. "Hello, Betty speaking" is correct. You don't need to have "Hello, Betty is speaking". The gerund works by itself in that case and it works by itself here too. It does seem a bit odd that the sentence ends after "computer on". I would have expected something like "Caitlin realizing for the first time that he hadn't even switched his computer on turned back to his desk."
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Re: Just a log (English, Italian)
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Re: Just a log (English, Italian)
aaleks wrote:rdearman wrote:aaleks wrote:rfnsoares wrote:"Whatley consulted one of a dozen clipboards hanging on the wall behind him, Caitlin realizing for the first time that he hadn't even switched his computer on."
OK, I think I understand the sentence more now. I believe that the author is trying to show that both of these events are happening simultaneously. You don't need to use "was realising" or another additional verb. I had this discussion with an Italian speaker just today about answering the phone in English. "Hello, Betty speaking" is correct. You don't need to have "Hello, Betty is speaking". The gerund works by itself in that case and it works by itself here too. It does seem a bit odd that the sentence ends after "computer on". I would have expected something like "Caitlin realizing for the first time that he hadn't even switched his computer on turned back to his desk."
I'd quote a little more then.
Whatley consulted one of a dozen clipboards hanging on the wall behind him, Caitlin realizing for the first time that he hadn't even switched his computer on.
"Six months ago, it looks like here."
Now Caitlin did rise. "I'll check it out." She started to move for the door, then stopped.
But the whole book is written like this, as a result my reading pace dropped from 30 to 20 or so page a hour .
AHHH!!! The he in this sentence is referring to Whatley. Oddly I'd assumed that Caitlin was a man. (I don't think I've ever heard that name). So the 'realising' is she (Caitlin) has just now at this moment realised that "he", e.g. Whatley hadn't turned on his computer. OK, makes sense now. There isn't a was, or "realised" because the it is happening right now.
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Re: Just a log (English, Italian)
aaleks wrote:smallwhite wrote:> #1
"... consulted one of a dozen clipboards hanging on the wall behind him, Caitlin realizing for the first time that he hadn't even switched his computer on."
When asking questions about grammar it’s always better to quote the whole sentence because you may be cutting up the sentence at the wrong place and giving insufficient or even misleading information. What you have quoted above is insufficient.
Edit: glad you realised.
I just didn't think that in English that might be so important. I though that "him" would be enough Probably because in my native language it would be obvious that there are two persons: a man and Caitlin. Sorry
A complete sentence is needed not for character identification but for deciding grammar. For example, “Killing three” is not correct as a complete sentence but “The bomb exploded, killing three” is, so you can’t just quote “killing three” from the latter and ask if or why it’s correct. Similarly, rdearman’s new version is correct as a complete sentence but run-on if he actually meant “Whatley consulted one of a dozen clipboards hanging on the wall behind him, Caitlin realizing for the first time that he hadn't even switched his computer on turned back to his desk“, similar to “Person A consulted his clipboard, Person B turned back to his desk”.
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The “realizing” in this discussion is a participle and not a gerund.
There isn't a “was”, or "realised" because the author chose to express Caitlin’s realisation as a participle phrase (“Caitlin realising...”) rather than as a finite clause (eg. “and Caitlin realised that...”)
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Re: Just a log (English, Italian)
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Re: Just a log (English, Italian)
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