Grammar help

Olive8585

Hi guys!

I love writing (and hope to share some of my writing here soon) but my grammar often lets me down. An editor acquaintance who had a quick look at my work told me that this construction is not good:

They served everyone, from locals to expats to royalty.

Should there be a comma before each 'to'? 'from locals, to expats, to royalty?'

Mr.Nice Guy

I'd say that's what your acquaintance meant.

It's considered good practice to separate items in a series or list so it would be: 'They served everyone, from locals, to expats, to royalty.'

I'm open to correction though.

echo beach

It isn't really a grammar problem. With or without commas the sentence doesn't read well, which may be what the editor meant. 'Locals, expats and royalty all ate there,' might work but you still don't really convey the type of place it was.

pickarooney

Your editor friend could have had the courtesy to tell you what he/she thought was wrong, no?

Adding commas before each "to" makes no sense. I personally don't see anything wrong with your sentence as it stands.

Slicemeister

Would it read better from locals to expat and royalty? The 2 comparisons are still there. On phone here so excuse punctuation.

Olive8585

pickarooney wrote: »

Your editor friend could have had the courtesy to tell you what he/she thought was wrong, no?

Adding commas before each "to" makes no sense. I personally don't see anything wrong with your sentence as it stands.

Nope, they think it's better for me to figure it out on my own. I don't see what's wrong with it either. I think the commas look awkward and out of place. I'm confused.

Das Kitty

Olive8585 wrote: »

Nope, they think it's better for me to figure it out on my own. I don't see what's wrong with it either. I think the commas look awkward and out of place. I'm confused.

Maybe they're just being a dick?

Olive8585

Das Kitty wrote: »

Maybe they're just being a dick?

No, they're doing me a pretty big favour looking over my work for free and the rest of their corrections are fine. I'm just confused about this one.

Agent Weebley

Hi Olive8585,

Although this sentence lacks any relationship to what was said before or after, making it difficult to fully embrace why you said what you said, it strikes me that those 3 chosen words are neither homogeneous nor heterogeneous. My first impression was that you were talking about a restaurant, but later, I imagined that you could be taking about a tennis club, but the club "pro" doesn't usually just serve all day, leaving the most likely meaning being a co-location service, possibly "cloud" based, since "cloud" is such a modern term and their servers could serve locals, expats, as well as royalty, without either party knowing each other.

I can't explain why I came back to my first impression: restaurant, since the two other choices are equally valid. Maybe I just included them to make the last paragraph a little more meaty, beaty, big and bouncy?

A restaurant can serve locals but would be unlikely to serve expats, since they are located on foreign soil, and royalty would not habit a restaurant, unless he/she was on the road to abdication.

Insect Overlord

The word "everyone", while meant figuratively, comes across a bit too literally. No one place could possibly serve everyone.

namenotavailablE

How about:

They served everyone- locals, expats, royals.

Olive8585

That's not the actual sentence from my writing, just an example of the construction I found online (so it's not just me who uses that construction, it seems to be widespread). I was told it was a punctuation issue, so it's not a content issue.

Agent Weebley

Olive8585 wrote: »

That's not the actual sentence from my writing, just an example of the construction I found online (so it's not just me who uses that construction, it seems to be widespread). I was told it was a punctuation issue, so it's not a content issue.

So that was a wild goose chase?

Olive8585

Agent Weebley wrote: »

So that was a wild goose chase?

Well, I said very clearly in my original post that the problem was with the construction of the sentence - that 'from...to...to...' structure. I appreciate that you took the time to help, I really do, but in all honestly, it's not my fault you didn't read my OP properly and went off on a tangent about something that has absolutely no relation to what I asked about. You went off on a wild goose chase yourself. Everyone else understood what I was asking. Not fair to make me feel bad about it.

Agent Weebley

Olive8585 wrote: »

Well, I said very clearly in my original post that the problem was with the construction of the sentence - that 'from...to...to...' structure. I appreciate that you took the time to help, I really do, but in all honestly, it's not my fault you didn't read my OP properly and went off on a tangent about something that has absolutely no relation to what I asked about. You went off on a wild goose chase yourself. Everyone else understood what I was asking. Not fair to make me feel bad about it.

I'm sorry you may be feeling bad, but you alluded to "this construction" being "your construction." Did your construction have 9 words? If so, with a 50,000 word vocabulary, these 9 words would give you 1.95 x 10 to the power of 42 possible word combinations, so you may as well have written what you wrote so those that read it could read a little more into what the editor meant by his/her comment.

I am typing on on my phone right now, but later, I will add a link to the meaning of "reading."

Olive8585

Agent Weebley wrote: »

I'm sorry you may be feeling bad, but you alluded to "this construction" being "your construction." Did your construction have 9 words? If so, with a 50,000 word vocabulary, these 9 words would give you 1.95 x 10 to the power of 42 possible word combinations, so you may as well have written what you wrote so those that read it could read a little more into what the editor meant by his/her comment.

I am typing on on my phone right now, but later, I will add a link to the meaning of "reading."

I asked about a specific grammatical construction. There is no need to worry about context or content because the issue is with the fact that the editor did not like that particular construction. I can't post my own piece of work on here for reasons I don't feel the need to go into. The fact is that everyone else who posted knew what I meant.

If someone asked why writing 'I recommend you to go to that restaurant' was not good grammar, would you need to know what the context was in order to answer? Of course not.

Pretzill

Olive8585 wrote: »

Hi guys!

I love writing (and hope to share some of my writing here soon) but my grammar often lets me down. An editor acquaintance who had a quick look at my work told me that this construction is not good:

They served everyone, from locals to expats to royalty.

Should there be a comma before each 'to'? 'from locals, to expats, to royalty?'

Hi Olive the term construction to me means the structure of the sentence - whether that means there are grammatical errors or just over modding etc. To me with the example you gave the commas don't make the sentence any clearer to be honest, it reads as it's supposed to with or without. Perhaps the redunancy of 'They served everybody' means that there is no need to explain who everybody is.

I'm no grammar expert either in fact I struggle with it too particularly misplaced commas (agh!) and run on sentences. What has helped me is reading published works more closely - this isn't always easy especially if a book is gripping but sometimes I'll re-read paragraphs to see how the grammar is handled - not always foolproof but it does teach a little too. Good luck with your writing and remember too editors are there for a reason.

Agent Weebley

Olive8585 wrote: »

The fact is that everyone else who posted knew what I meant.

How can you assume that? I feel a ban coming on (for me, that is.)

Olive8585

Agent Weebley wrote: »

How can you assume that? I feel a ban coming on (for me, that is.)

Because their replies directly addressed the question I asked...

MagicMarker

Olive8585 wrote: »

Because their replies directly addressed the question I asked...

In your OP you clearly imply that the sentence you give as an example is a sentence from your work that your editor has specifically commented on. I highly doubt anyone replying to you thought otherwise.

Olive8585

MagicMarker wrote: »

In your OP you clearly imply that the sentence you give as an example is a sentence from your work that your editor has specifically commented on. I highly doubt anyone replying to you thought otherwise.

But how does that change the question I was asking? The replies I got about the construction of the sentence were all relevant and useful (and as it happens, the example is EXTREMELY similar to what I did write). Agent Weebley's reply went off on quite a tangent from what I asked and was actually very hard to understand. Obviously I wasn't going to comment on that because it's rude to do that to someone who has helped you, but I certainly didn't send anyone on a wild goose chase and it's unfair to imply that I did. If you want to go off on a tangent and not answer what I'm asking, fine. But don't blame me for wasting your time.

Oryx

I thought it was a sentence from your work too. Surely posting one actual sentence of your work won't ruin your copyright.

I can't speak of grammar, but when I read a sentence constructed like that, it staggers and doesn't read correctly. The to, to, to might be grammatically ok in theory but if it halts your reader youre better off finding another way to put that point across.

Agent Weebley

A wild goose chase is a lot of fun and never a waste of time. It's a pastime.

Ok then, if you were to find a sentence where you need to explain a word due to some sort of perceived or assumed ambiguity, such as the word: "everyone," then the obvious grammatical tool at hand would be the colon. Not a semi-colon but the full colon. Understand now?

Olive8585

Oryx wrote: »

I thought it was a sentence from your work too. Surely posting one actual sentence of your work won't ruin your copyright.

I can't speak of grammar, but when I read a sentence constructed like that, it staggers and doesn't read correctly. The to, to, to might be grammatically ok in theory but if it halts your reader youre better off finding another way to put that point across.

It's not about copyright, it's another reason. OK, that's interesting that it doesn't read well to you. I know some people have said it reads grand and others have suggested inserting commas, but maybe it's better to just put it in a different way.

If I were to say something like 'Mr Chen had no typical student. Those who attended his classes ranged from schoolchildren to housewives to high-flying businessmen' - does that read equally badly as the first example?

Oryx

Your second example reads better, perhaps because you are using compound words. And tbh if pickarooney says its ok, then it probably is.

Pretzill

Olive8585 wrote: »

It's not about copyright, it's another reason. OK, that's interesting that it doesn't read well to you. I know some people have said it reads grand and others have suggested inserting commas, but maybe it's better to just put it in a different way.

If I were to say something like 'Mr Chen had no typical student. Those who attended his classes ranged from schoolchildren to housewives to high-flying businessmen' - does that read equally badly as the first example?

I think that both examples are similiar in that it's 'everybody all named'or 'not typical' all named. So I would descibe 'not typical' instead of just stating it - but that is a content issue rather than grammar per se.

Those who attended Mr Chen's class where a disparate group; young, old, housewives and businessmen. A motley crue who challenged each other...

I'm aware of my own errors here - damn mobile phone posting.

pickarooney

I think the automatic "irrelevant crap" filter must be eating your posts Weebley. There's a way around it, but it involves staying on topic and off YouTube.

pickarooney

Agent Weebley wrote: »

I thought it was me not posting properly!

Are we confined to Quarters or No Quarters now?

And it's Nerfy.

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