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"My missing word is 'quote'. I guess yours was 'get' or 'appreciate', Larry!"

I can't remember back that far, Fluff. Who can tell what may have been in my mind, if anything at all!

You blokes just don't good writing when you see it.

After leaving the church Dalgliesh went briefly back to the Yard to pick up his file on Theresa Nolan and Diana Travers, and it was after midday before he arrived at 62 Campden Hill Square. He had brought Kate with him, leaving Massingham to supervise what remained to be done at the church. Kate had...

woodcutter wrote:I would imagine P.D.James is capable of a bad setence or two though.

Aren't we all!

Yes, the book does look interesting, Juan. And right in the middle of page 200 is the suggestion that " and nor " is rather British. The American analog is reckoned to be, " and neither ," which I do find unremarkable to my American ear. She didn't do her homework, and neither did I. However, in thi...

JTT's point is valid: a single sentence out of context is frequently, if not always, open to more than one interpretation. I should originally have supplied more context, leading up to that sentence. However, having made that point, his further assertion that it is bad writing then looses steam. Jua...

"It was not a decision he had expected Massingham to welcome, and nor had he." Had I supplied more context, you would have easily known that the first "he" was Dalgliesh, and the second "he" refers to Massingham, for those of you who are familiar with the characters in P. D. James' novels. I apolog...

Well, admittedly he did most of the heavy lifting. Mostly what I did was try to ask what I hoped sounded like intelligent questions. It was enough to intrigue him for a few back and forths, but I doubt his mind was stretched. My youngest son (who is studying in Brighton, England this year...U of Sus...

Ahh, Stephen, you are quite right about the author. She is indeed P. D. James, inducted into the International Mystery Hall of Fame in 2008, winner of the Grand Master Award from the Mystery Writers of America, winner of the Diamond Dagger Award from the British Crime Writers Association. I am curre...

Hi there Fluffy and Sally. Good to talk to you again. What has me confused, well not really confused, because I comprehend the sentence quite clearly, but curious, is the and before the nor . In American variety, I would expect the sentence to be written: It was not..., nor had he. Similar to Sally'...

Mmmmm. OK, Juan. Nice to hear from you. You think it's just poor writing, hmmm. I'd like to hear from some of our British colleagues on that. Let's see what they might have to say.

Larry

Hello all. It's Larry Latham here. Some of you old timers may remember me from earlier times and lively discussions. I've run across a sentence in a book I'm reading which sounds curious to me as an American speaker. I suspect it may be a Britishism, and so thought I'd appeal to some Brit blokes I k...

It can be " The United States history ", if the whole sentence is something like, " The United States history I studied in high school was quite different from the United States history taught in high schools today ." The is a determiner. Determiners work with nouns, often to help specify whether a ...

This is a great discussion from you two. I'd love to be in there with you, but you're doing so well that my jumping in would only muddy it up. Stephen in particular is, as you say, M56 , spot on with his comments. I fear this is not the kind of discussion that will foster heavy readership because th...

View 1, as you say, needn't be taken seriously. View 2 seems to be the one assumed by most language teachers I have met. I suppose most just never think about it, because after all, that's the view they were taught in school. It's the view still taught in most teacher training (unless there's been a...