Quick Fire Questions (A Place to Ask and Answer)

[Jo Zebedee]

I have the answer, having raised it myself a few months ago, and seen an agents take on the matter. the second, apparently, is the way to go.

 

[Warren_Paul]

In dialogue it should always be spelled out as words.

I think in narrative you can get away with using numbers instead, but not 100% sure on that. <-- Seen this done in some published works.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

There's something about how high the number goes. James, should it have degree in it?

 

[Ursa major]

Is it important to the story that the mower's direction of travel is changed by 180°?

 

[James Coote]

The reason it's not one hundred and eighty degrees is because it is meant to be more conversational or informal style. The character James is a practical kind of guy

But maybe you're right, I could just say turned, without specifying the angle

 

[Vertigo]

The rules are pretty loose and tend to be to do with how big and how 'rounded' the numbers are. In this case if it was important that it was exactly 180 degrees then I would use digits. However it is clearly being used colloquially and so I would use words. Apart from anything else, written as "lawnmower 180", looks more like a lawnmower model number. The expression itself is, I think, a perfectly acceptable idiom although I might have said "through one eighty".

 

[luci2also]

The reason it's not one hundred and eighty degrees is because it is meant to be more conversational or informal style. The character James is a practical kind of guy

But maybe you're right, I could just say turned, without specifying the angle

You could examine how essential the angle of turn is.
Such as if prior to that you see this.
James missed a spot but he'd be damned if he was going to let it worry him.
He turns the lawnmower one eighty.....

 

[luci2also]

Quick grammar question. Is this grammatically incorrect:



Should it be 'turned' and 'looked' instead of the ing versions? [FONT=&quot]

[/FONT]

This is getting close to an issue of tense. That may be what is troubling about it. I think it works as it stands even though it gives that small appearance of shifting from past tense to present and then back.

It actually reads like a good device that makes the actions more immediate while the narrative is in the past tense.

 

[Interference]

James turned the lawnmower one-eighty and pushed it down the garden path...."

The hyphen is important to make clear that it's idiomatic.

But the point you're making is perfectly well made. The man has turned his lawn mower around to go back down the lawn in the opposite direction.

 

[Mouse]

Thanks all who've answered my grammar question!

Note to self: Ignore Word's grammar checker.

 

[Olive Skye]

Ummm, I got a private message, but I can't respond because I don't have the required amount of posts. But it's like an urgent message. What do I do?

 

[Vertigo]

Thanks all who've answered my grammar question!

Note to self: Ignore Word's grammar checker.

Now that's a lesson I learned a while back. Though I do sort of take notice but only on a suggestion basis!

Ummm, I got a private message, but I can't respond because I don't have the required amount of posts. But it's like an urgent message. What do I do?

Olive, I would create a new thread in the Feedback sub forum and pop your question in there; It will get noticed by Brian or a Mod pretty quickly there and they will probably be able to help you out.

 

[chrispenycate]

Ummm, I got a private message, but I can't respond because I don't have the required amount of posts. But it's like an urgent message. What do I do?

Is the information particularly private, or just of no great interest to anybody else? In the latter case, you could 'visitor message' them; click on avatar (or, lacking avatar, user name and select 'view public profile'), and you'll find the visitor message box.

Anyone could come there and read it, but why should they? And it puts up a message on the recipient's screen saying someone's trying to talk to him/her. Answering requires 'view conversation between', by the way.

 

[Interference]

Ummm, I got a private message, but I can't respond because I don't have the required amount of posts. But it's like an urgent message. What do I do?

Post. Fast!


Not to be confused with poste haste.

 

[Hex]

Right. Vermin (not you, the question).

If most or all of the pigeons/ crows/ rats got wiped out in a city and the immediate countryside around, how long would it take them to come back? Any ideas?

 

[Mouse]

Depends what was wiping them out, I guess?

 

[Hex]

Ah sorry. People eating them. No disease or anything.

 

[Mouse]

I don't think people could eat them quick enough to wipe them out, could they? Not with the amount of babies they have. Rats in particular can have big litters (ten is average - I had a doe who had nine) and they can get pregnant from (I think) five weeks.

 

[Hex]

I suppose it depends what else they have to live on. In conditions of starvation and famine (e.g. the siege of Leningrad) I think people thought they'd eaten all the rats, and there was little food in rubbish etc for the rats to survive on.

 

[chrispenycate]

Right. Vermin (not you, the question).

If most or all of the pigeons/ crows/ rats got wiped out in a city and the immediate countryside around, how long would it take them to come back? Any ideas?

They'd be replaced practically as fast as they were eaten. Seagulls, or something. Last year we had a pigeon plague (Yeah!) which didn't wipe them out, but reduced their numbers by 30% or so. Before they'd finished dropping out if the sky to stink up the pavements we were swarming with crows.

Cities are just too rich an environment to stay empty for long. I remember reading that birds were moving back into Hiroshima within days of the bomb going off (can't find the reference for the moment). Mammals are a bit slower, because they have to walk, but nobody's going to miss out on a free lunch.