A nice afternoon
Dec 3, 2005 Writing Workshop Author: P. H.
Look at this text:
I did not see her until lunch-time, when she offered taking me for walk, and we spent a nice afternoon walking in the woods, and returned to house about five.
The text can be improved in a number of ways:
1. There are some mistakes in the text to correct.
2. Assuming that she made her offer without being forced to or being asked by anyone to do so, can you suggest a verb other than “offer” that would emphasize this nuance?
3. Think of other, more expressive, words to use instead of “nice”.
4. Assuming that they walked in the woods without having a particular purpose, can you suggest a more exact word than “walk”?
5. “…, and returned…” Isn’t there a better way of saying this?
Rewrite the text making any changes you find necessary to correct and improve it.
December 15th, 2005 at 10:54 pm
Azita Ghodsi Rassi, Tehran, Iran (7 December 2005)
I did not see her until lunch-time, when she offered to take me for a walk, and we spent a nice afternoon walking in the woods and returned to the house (or returned home) about five.
……………….
Delaram Fallahi, Tehran, Iran (7 December 2005)
I haven’t seen her since lunchtime, when she suggested taking me for a walk, and we spent an enjoyable afternoon strolling in the woods, and came back to the house at about five.
……………….
Pejman Habibi, Valenciennes, France (7 December 2005)
Nice tries, Ms Rassi and Ms Fallahi! (And welcome back to CyberEnd.com!)
Here is what I think about your texts:
“I did not see” is correct. The whole text is about a series of events which happened in the past; hence the use of the simple past tense.
“Stroll” is a good choice, especially when coupled with “enjoyable”, but obviously there are other choices as well to think of.
But let’s give more thought to questions 2, 3 and especially 5!
……………….
Hamed Jafar-Nejad, Houston, USA (8 December 2005)
I did not see her until lunchtime, when she proposed to take me for a walk. We spent a carefree afternoon meandering in the woods, and were back home by five.
……………….
Pejman Habibi, Valenciennes, France (8 December 2005)
An interesting contribution from Hamed, especially the use of “meandering”, which, although not what I had in mind, was indeed a nice touch.
Meander means “walk slowly without any clear direction” by the way, and – let me warn you – don’t forget to check the pronunciation!
Simple but smooth sort of rounding off the text, too, but I am still waiting for somebody to come up with a better solution for question 5, a solution so obvious everybody seems to be missing it!
……………….
Jaleh Salmanmanesh, Toronto, Canada (9 December 2005)
I did not see her until noon, when she asked me for a walk, and we spent a wonderful afternoon wandering around in the woods, and got back home about five.
……………….
Mina Ghavidel, Tehran, Iran (9 December 2005)
I did not see her until lunch-time when she suggested taking me for a walk, and we spent a lovely afternoon walking in the woods, and came back home about five.
……………….
Pejman Habibi, Valenciennes, France (9 December 2005)
Yes, “wandering” is also a good choice. (Make sure you don’t mix up “wander” with “wonder”, though.) And I think I would prefer “asked me out for a walk”.
You have spotted and corrected the mistakes. You have come up with a variety of interesting suggestions for improving the text. Thank you all, but there still remains the enigmatic, yet humble, number 5! Aren’t you going to do something about it?
……………….
Pirooz Hariri, Tehran, Iran (10 December 2005)
I haven’t seen her until lunchtime, when she suggested me taking a walk, and we spent a wonderful afternoon wandering in the woods, and got back house about five.
……………….
Fariba, Tehran, Iran (10 December 2005)
I had not seen her until lunch time, when she suggested to go for a walk, and we spend a wonderfull afternoon loafing in the woods, and reached home about 5.
……………….
Kasra, Tehran, Iran (10 December 2005)
I believe the correct passage would something like this:
I did not see her until lunch-time when she asked me for a walk; we spent a pleasant time in the wood and returned home at five.
We can also say “We took a walk until it was around 5.”.
……………….
Pejman Habibi, Valenciennes, France (10 December 2005)
A couple of points:
1. The word “full” (e.g. The glass is full of water), is written with “ll”, of course, but the case is different with the suffix “-ful” (wonderful, beautiful,…) which is written with only on “l”.
2. Using the structure “suggested me”, is a very common mistake among the speakers of Persian. The verb “suggest” is commonly used in the following ways:
– SUGGEST SOMETHING: May I suggest a new solution?
– SUGGEST DOING SOMETHING: She suggested going for a walk.
– SUGGEST (THAT) SOMEBODY DOES SOMETHING: I suggest you ask Jane to help you.
3. As I mentioned previously, the text is about a series of events which happened in the past, so the use of the simple past tense (“I did not see”) is correct. You shouldn’t change it.
4. “We took a walk until it was around 5″ is a good suggestion. However, it does not specify what they did thereafter. Did they go back home or do something else?
……………….
Delaram Fallahi, Tehran, Iran (11 December 2005)
What about this:
“…walking in the woods, getting home about five.” (although I’m not sure if it is correct!)
And, which one is correct? “about five” or “at about five”
……………….
Reza Rassi, Dubai (11 December 2005)
I did not see her until lunch-time, when she offered to take me for walk, and we spent a nice afternoon wondering about in the woods, and came back to her house about five.
……………….
Pejman Habibi, Valenciennes, France (11 December 2005)
Didn’t I warn you people not to mix up “wander” with “wonder”?!
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Azita Ghodsi Rassi (12 December 2005)
I think this is better:
I did not see her until lunch-time, when she suggested taking me for a walk, and we spent a lovely afternoon walking in the woods, and came home about five.
Mina Ghavidel, Tehran, Iran (12 December 2005)
When I typed my first answer, I think there was only one question, namely that of finding and correcting the three errors. Now that I have read what others suggested, I vote for “asking out” , “strolling” and “enjoyable”. As for question number 5, how about simply saying, “we were back” instead of “we returned home”?
……………….
Pejman Habibi, Valenciennes, France (12 December 2005)
There have been so many suggestions that I think it calls for a round-up of the different texts and suggestions:
1. There are 3 mistakes in the text:
– “…offered taking me…” should be “offered to take me”.
– “…for walk…” should be “for a walk”.
– “…returned to house…” should be “returned home” or “returned to the house”.
2. The texts some of the participants offered contain a couple of points I think we’d better discuss:
– “Loaf” means “to avoid work”. You may tell your child or your younger brother or sister to
“stop loafing and get on with their homework”. So, it is not really a good choice here.
– “…asked me for a walk”? Does it sound right to you? To me, it doesn’t. “Ask a lady for the next
dance” maybe, but not this one. And Ms Ghodsi Rassi’s “asking out”? Mmm, here is a mind-blower!
Do I hear wedding bells ringing? Isn’t there a hint of a romantic relationship to the expression? What
do you yourself think, Ms Rassi?
3. There was really an abundance of wonderful suggestions for improving the text in a variety of ways and I personally learnt a lot from them, thank you everybody. What really surprised me, however, was why all sorts of – some quite plausible – suggestions were made for number 5 except the most obvious one, which of course one of you finally suggested at long last.
And now it’s time for the curtain to be raised. Let me introduce this workshop’s honorary guest, the person who is going to answer all your questions. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Dame Agatha Christie:
I did not see Mrs. Cavendish until lunch-time, when she volunteered to take me for a walk, and we spent a charming afternoon roaming in the woods, returning to the house about five.
Agatha Christie: The Mysterious Affair at Styles
Let’s go over the text together. There may be a couple of things we can learn from Dame Chrisitie.
Pay special attention to the use of “volunteer”, and “roam” which seem to me to be just the right words for the situation. (Mr Jafarnejad’s “meander” is a very tempting alternative for “roam”, though it sounds a bit poetic to my ear.)
And please please don’t ask me why “charming”? Frankly, Christie’s opting for “charming” in the presence of such perfectly legitimate choices as “lovely”, “pleasant”, “carefree” etc (as suggested by some of you) really beats me! But then, it’s Agatha Christie!
So, as you see, it was Ms Fallahi after all who got number 5 right! Or maybe it is not really a matter of right or wrong. It might be fairer to say she had more similar tastes to Agatha Chrisite. But that is a very common structure and let me reiterate my surprise at why most of you missed it.
Well, that was it. The secret is out, the beans are spilt, the cat is out of the bag! I hope you enjoyed and learnt something from this workshop
That only leaves us with Ms Fallahi’s question: “about five” or “at about five”? Which is correct do you think?
……………….
Hamed Jafar-Nejad, Houston, USA (14 December 2005)
Thanks to all especially Pejman for making this interactive writing class possible. I’m eagerly looking forward to more questions.
I’ve seen “at about … o’clock” several times, but if Ms. Christie has used “about five” we will probably not be penalized for using it
March 23rd, 2010 at 10:42 pm
i think the right answer is: i didn’t see her since lunch-time when she offered me to take for a walk and spent a lovely afternoon wandering across the woods ,and returned back home at five.