Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[Bubu]

Hello everybody

I have just registered as a new member. My good greetings to all the members.

I have questions about the quoted lines.

I was discussing with my students a paragraph of a story. The story is about a boy who vanished. In the story a father comes to know that his new born child’s feet must not touch the earth until the child completes his 12th year otherwise the child will face big trouble.
“Great care was taken that this should be avoided.” [Extract from the original text]
So he appoints nurses to take care of the baby. Everything goes fine until he reaches his 12th year. The father becomes very happy and one day arranges a big feast to celebrate his son’s release. But while a nurse was carrying the baby a frightful unearthly yell distracts her attention and she drops the child on the ground and goes over to the window to sea what had caused the noise. But at the next moment-
“With a cry, she realized that she has disobeyed her master”. [Extract frm the orignl text]

This is how the story begins.

Now I would like to know the meaning and grammatical behaviour of the word “that” in the first indented sentence. Does it mean “so that”?

And in the second indented sentence I have this following question:

Doesn’t the sentence sound ambiguous?

“With a cry, she realized” I think may convey two different meanings 1] the cry made her realize or the cry was responsible to make he realize. 2] She realized her mistake and as a result uttered the cry [This is certainly the meaning the writer wants to convey]

Could any one plz explain? Thanks

Bubu

[kurt]

Hi Bubu,

First of all, for future reference, do not try to apply strict grammatical rules to Literature. Rules are bent or broken for the sake of the Art. Second, English conventions vary slightly depending on the time period in history. My guess in this case is that "so that this should" is such a tongue twister that the lazy tongues deleted the "so" to create an idiomatic version that is more aesthetic. That's just my theory, but the answer to your question is yes -- the author's intent is to express cause and effect. (By the way, notice how I just showed cause and effect with "such...that" in the second to last sentence in this paragraph)

As for the second question, the author is describing the nurse's reaction to seeing the little boy's feet touching the ground. As she sees the boy and realizes she failed at her job, she "crys" in lament at the same time.

Hope that helps.

Kurt

http://www.kurtweissgerber.com

[Bubu]

Thanks kurt
'twas quite amusing to hear about the lazy tongues.....lovely.

But what about the ambiguity?

[kurt]

For me there's no ambiguity. The prepositional phrase offset with a comma before the subject indicates that this phrase is describing the subject of the sentence or the action taken by the subject.

Similarly, let's take a look at two sentences with the same words but different meanings because of the placement of the reduced clause. Notice the difference in meaning.

1. Walking through the park, I saw my old roommate.
2. I saw my old roommate walking through the park.

In the first sentence, the participial phrase describes what I was doing at the time I saw my old roommate. In the second sentence it describes what the roommate was doing when I saw him.

[Bubu]

excellent explanation kurt
thanks
are youa native speaker of english?

[kurt]

Yes. I'm from Chicago. Where are you from?

[Bubu]

Hi
I am bubu from india.