Korean Job Discussion Forums

[brento1138]

I dunno why.. but I can't seem to think this morning. Anyhow, is this sentence correct: "The old people were suffering from feeling alone and hunger."

I am wondering if it is OK to use "feeling alone" there. The answer should be "loneliness" but a student wrote "feeling alone" and I don't know whether that student should be given a point.

[raewon]

I'm not sure ... but wouldn't "hunger" have to be "hungry" in order for
"feeling alone" to work there? Sorry I can't be of help.

[edwardcatflap]

I'd say 'suffer from' could be followed by either a noun or a gerund (...ing form) so technically the sentence is correct. However from a style point of view, I'd say loneliness is better.

"The old people were suffering from feeling alone and hungry."

This would also be ok as the 'hungry' would go with the verb 'feel' rather than with the 'suffer from'

[jhuntingtonus]

[wawawawonder]

It'd have to be a reaaaaaally high-level class before I started deducting points for things like that!

-There's technically nothing wrong with it.
-It gets the message across 100%.
-It sounds okay albeit not completely idiomatic.

So, let it go!

[FMPJ]

It's a parallelism error. "Feeling alone" should be parallel with "hunger," and since there's a noun form of "alone," it should be used ("loneliness").