Quick Fire Questions (A Place to Ask and Answer)

[Esfires]

If none of the solutions really catches your eye, you can always dance around the problem entirely.

"I'm probably going to end up as some hermit," he sighed. "Lonely and sad."

 

[Interference]

I’m going to end up some sad, lonely old hermit.

As HB says, this is correct. By my understanding:

Because "old hermit" is a term in its own right, a noun preceded by an adjectival qualifier. However "sad" and "lonely" qualify the qualification and should be separated from each other by a comma.

Young man, old hermit, fast connection etc are adjectival descriptions while "sad, miserably slow fast connection" qualify a description. The last adjective is almost never separated from its associated noun by a comma or anything else. (I say "almost", because undoubtedly there exists an example of this rule being broken by some revered intellectual somewhere, some time.)

Now having confused everything, I'm off to watch, and moan about how awful it's become this season, Being Human.

 

[Vertigo]

I'm sure I read somewhere recently if you can change the order of the adjectives or put the word and between them and keep the same meaning then you should use a comma. In this case I would say you can do both of those so commas it is. On the other hand something like "the old secret agent" could not be re-written as "the secret old agent" without the meaning being changed, so no comma.

Leastways that's how I understood it.

 

[Interference]

Hence:

The smiling secret agent.

The secret, smiling agent.



(Nice one, Vertigo, you jogged a 50 year old memory with that )

 

[TheDustyZebra]

This one.

I’m going to end up some sad, lonely old hermit.

(But "sad and lonely" works too.)

I wouldn't think twice about writing it either of these ways. I don't like the comma after the second word either, whether it's sad or lonely.

 

[HareBrain]

Interesting points, Inter and Vertigo.

And indeed, it is "sad, lonely old hermit", but it would be "old, sad, lonely hermit".

Int langwidge funny?

 

[Mouse]

Weirdly I don't understand what you lot are on about 'adjectival qualifiers' and whatnot, but I get it.

Now having confused everything, I'm off to watch, and moan about how awful it's become this season, Being Human.

 

[David Evil Overlord]

Weirdly I don't understand what you lot are on about 'adjectival qualifiers' and whatnot, but I get it.

Neither do I, but it's good to make a note of that sort of thing, because I have a character whom is a English teacher, and he likes to speak proper and confuzzle the kiddies.

For example, he has just confiscated all the Valentine's Day flowers any boy brought to school for a girl...

‘I am confiscating these floral offerings because they perpetuate a dystopian dynamic of triumphalism and dejection,’ Mr Hartwell said.

I got hopelessly lost right after the floral offerings. ‘What?’

‘He means it f***s with the heads of the girls who don’t get any flowers,’ said Allan.

Throw in a few 'adjectival qualifiers', and the character is complete.

 

[Ursa major]

I prefer DEO's suggestion, i.e. the one he prefers:

I’m going to end up some sad, lonely old hermit.

Having said that, I'd like the sentence even more if the word, some, was replaced with the words, as a, or preceded by the word, as:

I’m going to end up as a sad, lonely old hermit.

or

I’m going to end up as some sad, lonely old hermit.

First of all, I slightly stumbled because of the lack of the word, as. Second - and fully I expect that it's only me who has this problem - the absence of the word, as, created an image in my head of the speaker/narrator up ending some sad, lonely old hermit.

 

[Interference]

Is this the only place where a "very quick question" can spread over three pages?

 

[Ursa major]

No-one said that the answers had to be quick, or limited in number.

 

[Interference]

True. And to be fair, the question really was quick

 

[Jo Zebedee]

I think, the words a very quick question should leave us all running for cover...

 

[Warren_Paul]

I think, the words a very quick question should leave us all running for cover...

Second this...

Nothing is ever quick around here.

 

[David Evil Overlord]

The name of the thread is "Quick fire questions (a place to ask and answer)".

Quick questions. No speed limit imposed on answers.

 

[Warren_Paul]

The name of the thread is "Quick fire questions (a place to ask and answer)".

Quick questions. No speed limit imposed on answers.

Quote for truth. Who said the answers had to be quick?

 

[Pyan]

On the other hand something like "the old secret agent" could not be re-written as "the secret old agent" without the meaning being changed, so no comma.

Like the title of this thread - when I saw it on the index page, the first reaction that popped into my head was that someone was asking some quick questions about fire.

For the intended meaning, I'd have expected Quick-fire; the absence of the hyphen changes it entirely.

 

[David Evil Overlord]

Okay, back to the quick fire questions, before we are sent to the dark and scary dungeon full of nasty hobbitses.

I have the opportunity to include the words "bats**t crazy" in my super hero story. I would love to do so, if for no other reason than to poke fun at all those "Holy Bat-tastrophy, Batman!" comments from the Boy Wonder.

But a lot of people are advising me to take my teenage heroine to the YA market, where naughty words are punishable by a severe lack of publication.

Do I let my heroine swear? Or do I wash her mouth out with soap and make her YA acceptable?

 

[Warren_Paul]

Okay, back to the quick fire questions, before we are sent to the dark and scary dungeon full of nasty hobbitses.

I have the opportunity to include the words "bats**t crazy" in my super hero story. I would love to do so, if for no other reason than to poke fun at all those "Holy Bat-tastrophy, Batman!" comments from the Boy Wonder.

But a lot of people are advising me to take my teenage heroine to the YA market, where naughty words are punishable by a severe lack of publication.

Do I let my heroine swear? Or do I wash her mouth out with soap and make her YA acceptable?

If you wanted to write it for the YA market, I'd say take what we consider swear words out, but use youthanisms instead - made-up swear words. Somebody correct me if I'm wrong on this, but I believe you will get away with that in YA.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Your characters are 17, and they're interested in each other.... is it going to limit you if you can't explore certain, um, avenues? Not that i'm obsessed, just interested.