Quick Fire Questions (A Place to Ask and Answer)

[Jo Zebedee]

Oops, yes, you are quite correct, Mouse. Typing with my brain in neutral and before double-checking, for which there is no excuse. There's two in Europe.

I will go off and write twenty times: I am a numpty. Do not type when tired.

Many apologies.,

I wouln't worry, Aber, I regularly type something here and then realise I really shouldn't have. Usually in the last post thread, but that's an entirely different matter...

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Sorry, getting into absolute nit picking now, but it's the first para; I need it right, not clunky, and I'm not getting there. I have

The pond was calm and its water channels mossy; beside it the ruined mill, its wheel a husk. The only sounds were of ducks squabbling, their noisy quacks and splashing wings echoing. A chatter of voices invaded the scene as two children arrived, nets in hand.

or

The pond was calm and its water channels mossy. Beside it stood the ruined mill, its wheel a husk. The only sounds were of ducks squabbling, their noisy quacks and splashing wings echoing. A chatter of voices invaded the scene as two children arrived, nets in hand.

With semi colon/ without. Eyes leaving my head trying to decide... not literally, for those who were thinking of a pun; they're attached. I prefer the first, but I think I'm addicted to semi colons.

 

[alchemist]

Go for the second. I think "with nets in hand" might break up all those commas too.

 

[Ursa major]

Would it be better if the arrival of the children was in a new paragraph? Either that, or reword the sentence about the only sounds being that of the ducks**. Otherwise, to me - and I'll admit that I'm being a bit picky - it looks almost like a contradiction.


** - Something like (but a lot better than, obviously):

The sounds of ducks squabbling -- noisy quacks and splashing wings -- was drowned out by a chatter of voices, as two children arrived, nets in hand.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

They were two paragraphs. Then I put them into one. Eurggh.

 

[Arkose]

Deleted and PM instead.

 

[TheDustyZebra]

I'm not fond of the echoing -- first, it would have to be a very contained area for duck splashes to echo, and second, the echoing would be a cacophony when the children showed up, as they would echo too. I don't see this scene as being in a tiny canyon or surrounded with high rock walls, so the echos don't work for me. I could be wrong.

Ursa has a point, too. Go with something like that, and/or something closer to the second one.

 

[hopewrites]

Another one from me:

If you were a scientific type (lab-based, biology stuff) and you were trying to calm yourself down by -- let's say -- reciting something very dull and routine to yourself, what might it be?

I have a sentence written that says: "I closed my eyes, breathed slowly and recited the names of the Noble Gases, the chemical composition of [???]."

Any ideas gratefully received.

digits of pi, though I see that I am late, and all my "nerd" frineds are math and programming nerds, I would assume that biologist know more then just the first three digits which is all I know. if nothing else its nerdy enough to get the point across without you needing to research something nerdtasticly and can be put into a throw-away-ish sentence "she recited the digits of pi in calming cadence" or somesuch.

 

[AMB]

Phi would be better if you were going down that route. I think the golden ratio has slightly more applications in biology than pi.

But I know nothing.

 

[The Judge]

Just to get you really confused, springs, I preferred the first para with the semi-colon (though I'd have a comma after "it").

I'm also happy with it all being one para. I didn't see it as a contradiction as the ducks were the only noise until the children arrive, which is separate, later, matter, but if you want to avoid any issue, add a "Then" (ie "Then a chatter of voices..." to make it clearer. Ursa's re-write has the advantage of clarity, but to my mind it loses the more poetic feel of your version -- so you need to establish the tone of the whole story to see which sits most easily within it.

 

[HareBrain]

I'd prefer a hybrid of the two. I like the semi-colon (being also a fan) but I think it should say "stood the ruined mill", as in version two -- without "stood", the bit after the semi-colon is effectively a sentence fragment (lacking a verb) and my brain expected the sentence to continue and complete, eg: "beside it the ruined mill, its wheel a husk, towered against the bloodshot sky like a particularly odious branch of Woolworths." When it didn't, it was like running into buffers.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

I think that makes sense, HB, because I do prefer the slightly softer first one, it's more dreamy, which is what I'm aiming for, but it did seem a little truncated.

 

[The Judge]

Ah, now to me, I like it in its present form, and I had no problem with hearing it spoken without requiring more words much less a verb. To me, if it continues into the towering wreck of Woolies, it ought to be a new sentence starting at "Besides..." Which just goes to show again that this fine-tuning, as HB has said recently, is not a science, but an art, and it's a matter of taste and personal feeling for the rhythm of a sentence. So, as long as you get what punctuation there is correct, go with your gut!

 

[HareBrain]

In a book I read a couple of days ago, someone declared that a star sapphire was "the only stone a man could wear". I started reading another book today, set around 1900, in which the male character does indeed have a star sapphire ring. But I can't find out why that's the only stone a man is (or was) supposed to be able to wear, or why (or even if) it's particularly a male stone. Can anyone shed any light on it?

 

[Vertigo]

I have seen references to it being popular for men's jewelry but nothing that describes it being the only gem a man should wear.

 

[Ursa major]

If an author wants, in their imagined world, to make rules along the lines of X is the only Y that those of a particular gender could wear, that's up to them. And their characters are even more free to state their opinion on what the mores of the day are (even if they're wrong).

 

[HareBrain]

The book was a biography; the person reported to have said it was the artist Austin Osman Spare. I just wondered on what custom or belief he based what I took at first to have been an eccentic personal taste, but which now seems (from the little the internet has revealed) to have had at least some basis in cultural mores.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

A quick q; is the posessive of empress empress's or empress' or are both valid? Ty

 

[HareBrain]

A quick q; is the posessive of empress empress's or empress' or are both valid? Ty

I think you can use either -- as long as you're consistent with other s-ending words -- but empress's is more correct traditionally, at least in the UK, and also makes more sense to me, because it's pronounced "empresses". I much prefer it.

 

[Pyan]

M'learned colleague HB is right - both forms are correct, with "empress's" being the most widely used.

"The Empress's tiara was on display."

But if there were more than one empress, it seems to revert to the single added apostrophe:

"Both Empresses' tiaras were on display."