Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[leslie]

Hi,

I have a question to ask in the following sentence in red.

An earlier vessel is not possible at this point, and I have checked with our New York office to see if it is possible to hold this shipment for the NEXT sailing, that would have the freight arriving a week later into destination.


1. Is "arriving" correct here? If not, what is correct? If yes, why?
2. Can I use "arrive" here?

Thank you for your help!

Leslie

[sandyshores]

Hi Lesie,
To begin with, I think that your problem begins with the fact that you have one long run-on sentence. It will be easier for you to really express what you want to say if you write, "An earlier vessel is not possible at this point." Then in your next part you would remove the comma after the word sailing. It appears that you are trying to convey something to a customer. It will be better to use the word "arrive" as it will be more direct and bring greater clarity and assurance. Even more so is the fact that an arrival is really a one-time event. When you use "arriving" it implies a continuing event like driving. Maybe you could have a second and third sentence. "I have checked with our New York office to see if it is possible to hold this shipment for the NEXT sailing that would have the freight arrive at destination a week later. Or you can break this sentence in two with a period after "sailing". I hope this helps.
Steve

[sandyshores]

Hi Lesie,
To begin with, I think that your problem begins with the fact that you have one long run-on sentence. It will be easier for you to really express what you want to say if you write, "An earlier vessel is not possible at this point." Then in your next part you would remove the comma after the word sailing. It appears that you are trying to convey something to a customer. It will be better to use the word "arrive" as it will be more direct and bring greater clarity and assurance. Even more so is the fact that an arrival is really a one-time event. When you use "arriving" it implies a continuing event like driving. Maybe you could have a second and third sentence. "I have checked with our New York office to see if it is possible to hold this shipment for the NEXT sailing that would have the freight arrive at destination a week later. Or you can break this sentence in two with a period after "sailing". I hope this helps.
Steve

[sandyshores]

Hi Lesie,
To begin with, I think that your problem begins with the fact that you have one long run-on sentence. It will be easier for you to really express what you want to say if you write, "An earlier vessel is not possible at this point." Then in your next part you would remove the comma after the word sailing. It appears that you are trying to convey something to a customer. It will be better to use the word "arrive" as it will be more direct and bring greater clarity and assurance. Even more so is the fact that an arrival is really a one-time event. When you use "arriving" it implies a continuing event like driving. Maybe you could have a second and third sentence. "I have checked with our New York office to see if it is possible to hold this shipment for the NEXT sailing that would have the freight arrive at destination a week later. Or you can break this sentence in two also with a period after "sailing". I hope this helps.
Steve

[leslie]

Hi Steve,

Thank you very much for your answer. That paragaph was written by an English native speaker. When I read that, I was not sure why 'arriving' had been used. As you indicated, it's a run-on sentence. Could you please explain why it is a run-on sentence? I personally think it has conjunction 'and' in the sentence. Why would you suggest it is a run-on sentence?

Secondly, my guess of using 'arriving' is as followed, could you also tell me please if it is suitable. Could 'arriving' means something that is going to happen recently so, the sentence maker implies that is something processing at the present? It's just my guess.

Could you please confirm once more that 'arriving' is definitely incorrect here?
Thank you very much.

Leslie learner of english as 2nd language

[sandyshores]

Hi again Leslie,
This example is exactly why I don't teach English anymore. I think that the learning/teaching experience gets ruined by the fact that sometimes it all just seems to be so trivial. Your sentence is a great example though and I'm happy to see students striving to get everything right. Any native speaker though would know exactly what's going on and probably not even think twice about how it is written. Either way, Im glad that this sentence is not yours. It makes it easier to critique.

Ok, the first thing wrong with the sentence is the comma before the word "that". This comma shows you that too many things are going on in the sentence. To keep it simple I will say that one just needs to remove the comma. It is not grammatically correct with the comma where it is. The writer is trying to get away with not adding another "and" where the comma is. There should definitely be an "and" there to make a more correct, but run-on sentence.

[leslie]

Hi Steve,

Thank you very much for your effort to help me. As an English learner, I have always been puzzled by some loose usage of english. Some are grammatically correct but seldom colloquially used; some are grammatically incorrect but often colloquailly applied, especially when English is widely, internationally used, and there are so many variations.

When people ask me english questions, I always feel not so sure if they are correctly explained by me. Thanks to this forum and kind people like you who will help answer english questions. I think I understand your answer. I'm particularly interested in the trivial differences among sentences. Hopefully, I can learn as much as I can from those differences.

Thank you once again for your help!! Have a nice day!

Leslie feeling assured now by your answer