Quick Fire Questions (A Place to Ask and Answer)

[springs]

thanks everyone, extra comma coming up!

[Ursa major]

Originally Posted by Vertigo

...especially if they are aware the other shoulder is injured/immobilised.

I agree that if one shoulder can't be moved, its owner can shrug only using the other one, However, I'm not sure that was the case** in the linked story. I got the impression that the use of just the one shoulder was meant to be a sign of the non-committal nature of the shrug.





** - Just before the "uni-shrug" is mentioned, there is this sentence:

A long flight behind them, Gwenhylew and Eledhwe stretched their arms as they spoke softly in Darnassian.

I read this as indicating that both Gwenhylew and Eledhwe have the full use of their arms. (Although having read some more of that text, I'm not sure I can rely too much on its descriptive power.)

[Vertigo]

OK well not a point worth labouring, though I did do a quick browse around the web and found quite a few uses of one-shouldered shrug. Including these:

"Sometimes it takes only one or two details to light up a character for your readers. . . . The old man's carefully parted hair suggests that he has not totally given up. The tinny clatter of cheap crockery implies that the restaurateur has fallen on hard times. The sullen teenager's one-shouldered shrug connotes indifference tinged with contempt."
(Monica Wood, Description. Writer's Digest Books, 1995)

That little one-shouldered shrug was beginning to grow on John. It seemed to fit well with the flop of hair that kept falling over Kyle’s left eye.

I confess I have no idea who the authors of either of these actually are. Just a couple of examples that I found and think read perfectly fine. Certainly wouldn't break my concentration on the story.

[Ursa major]

I can't help feeling that this sentence:

That little one-shouldered shrug was beginning to grow on John.

is an indication that John is falling in love. How else would anything as uncommitted and feeble as the regular recourse to a 'little one-shouldered shrug' grow on anyone?

One could even argue that the movement is as much imagined by the observer (the soon-to-be besotted) as intended by the owner of the shoulder, who may have some mild form of tic (assuming that such an independent movement exists at all).

[springs]

sorry about this, I'm in the middle of a line edit, so lots of punctuation queries. I have this:


My powers; I’m adopted, I don’t where they come from, but they’re very like the Roamers’




Should Roamers have a possessive apostrophe (getting there, Chrispy but still a work in progress )?

[Hex]

Yes, because they are like the powers of the Roamers (plural -- the Roamers as a group have these powers(*)). So you're correct


(*) unless you mean one Roamer, in which case the apostrophe should be before the s

[David B]

Originally Posted by springs1971

sorry about this, I'm in the middle of a line edit, so lots of punctuation queries. I have this:


My powers; I’m adopted, I don’t where they come from, but they’re very like the Roamers’




Should Roamers have a possessive apostrophe (getting there, Chrispy but still a work in progress )?

No apostrophe but you need:

1. a full stop at the end
2. 'Know' between don't and when
3. To sort out the front of the sentence i.e:
I'm adopted. I don't know where my powers....

[Grimbear]

I think it should, but if you don't like the effect there could be other ways of getting around it by restructuring the sentence:

My powers; I’m adopted, I don’t where they come from, but they’re very like the Roamers’

Could be:

My powers; I'm adopted, I don't know where they come from, but they're like those of the Roamers.

My powers are like Roamer powers, but I don't know where they came from - I'm adopted.

The Roamers have similar powers I think, but I don't know where mine came from as I was adopted.


Hope that helps?

[David Evil Overlord]

Springs, by mentioning adoption, it sounds like your protagonist does know where his/her powers come from i.e. they are inherited through the alchemy of genetics.

[springs]

thanks Hex, DB. Hex, that was my take on it, that the powers belonged to the Roamer race, if you like.

DB, the sentence runs on, I missed the know (how do our eyes do that in our own work and not someone elses?) I'm not sure about the last, it's dialogue and I think the way I have it fits his venacular better but I'll stew on it.

I'll leave the apostrophe there for now, and see if I get a concensus. sounds like it should be.

oh and two more. I'm not so worried about the sentence construction ie how it sounds, because it fits in with a person's voice.

And the adoption; he doesn't know, his physical characteristics are very different from the Roamers, so he has pretty well dismissed being one of them - plus it goes against the traditions of the Roamers to give a baby up for adoption. and it's a plot line for book 2 even more importantly....

[David B]

Originally Posted by springs1971

thanks Hex, DB. Hex, that was my take on it, that the powers belonged to the Roamer race, if you like.

DB, the sentence runs on, I missed the know (how do our eyes do that in our own work and not someone elses?) I'm not sure about the last, it's dialogue and I think the way I have it fits his venacular better but I'll stew on it.

I'll leave the apostrophe there for now, and see if I get a concensus. sounds like it should be.

oh and two more. I'm not so worried about the sentence construction ie how it sounds, because it fits in with a person's voice.

And the adoption; he doesn't know, his physical characteristics are very different from the Roamers, so he has pretty well dismissed being one of them - plus it goes against the traditions of the Roamers to give a baby up for adoption. and it's a plot line for book 2 even more importantly....

No, on second reading Hex is right on the apostrophe.

[David Evil Overlord]

Okay, so Roamer powers are inherited, but he doesn't look like a Roamer, and he's adopted when Roamers are not. Right, we're on the same page now. Just reading that sentence without any other background threw me for a moment.

[Ursa major]

And the adoption; he doesn't know, his physical characteristics are very different from the Roamers, so he has pretty well dismissed being one of them - plus it goes against the traditions of the Roamers to give a baby up for adoption.

It's a personal thing, but in ignorance of the context of your text, and assuming you want a bigger pause than a comma would deliver, I'd start the sentence with: 'As for the adoption...'


The word, so, indicates a conclusion being made, but this isn't the result of being ignorant, which is what you have here is you remove the text between the commas**:

He doesn't know, so he has pretty well dismissed being one of them

That doesn't make sense. The conclusion results from the man's/boy's physical characteristics being unlike that of the Roamers:

His physical characteristics are very different from the Roamers', so he has pretty well dismissed being one of them.

So my suggestion for the text would be:

As for the adoption... he doesn't know. His physical characteristics are very different from the Roamers', so he has pretty well dismissed being one of them. Plus it goes against the traditions of the Roamers to give a baby up for adoption.

(By the way, I've become so sensitised to the possible presence of comma splicing - in other people's text - that I thought you'd included one in your quote.)



** - I was taught that one way of determining whether commas were appropriate was to see what a sentence looked like with the text between a pair*** of them removed.

*** - Pair being the operative word: commas used for other things - such as lists - are ignored for this sort of exercise.

[David Evil Overlord]

Originally Posted by Ursa major

But I thought (and so does my dictionary) that shrugging used both shoulders. So aren't we getting into the territory of the one-handed clap?

According to Terry Pratchett, the sound of one hand clapping is the sound made by one hand of a holy man slapping the face of a rather annoying acolyte.

[Mouse]

Questions!

1. If a driver knocked down and killed a child, how long would they get in jail?

2. Could a car accident cause a heavily pregnant woman to lose the baby? (I'm thinking this is a stupid question and the answer's yes, but you never know.)

Morbid questions. Sorry about that.