Thread: Advice on Wording

I am working on my manuscript and word wants me to write "...the children loved the start of the warmer weather." But it feels more natural to write "...the children were loving the start of the warmer weather." What do you thing WF?

Your choice, though your version has an archaic ring to it.

Second one is better, it doesn't use a passive voice. Good luck.

"The children loved the start of the warmer weather" is normal past tense. It's simple and sweet.

"The children were loving the start of the warmer weather" is past tense, but in progress. It feels a little bit needlessly complicated to me.

You want to know what would be better? Showing us that the kids loved the weather, not just telling us.

Originally Posted by Transformation

Second one is better, it doesn't use a passive voice. Good luck.

I see nothing passive about either. Passive would be "The start of the warmer weather was loved by the children." Right? Unless my brain is failing me right now.

Originally Posted by Transformation

Second one is better, it doesn't use a passive voice. Good luck.

Another reason why I don't pay any heed to 'rules'. Neither of those constructions is passive.

It's also a good reason to find that first form grammar and refresh our memory about what is active and what is passive. As Sam points out, both of those constructions are active voice. J.W. is also correct in that by using a progressive form of the verb there is needless complication, a need for a helper. In this case 'were' must be added to show past tense.

The simple past tense as suggested by Word is cleaner, but it may not mean what you intend. If you want to say something such as 'In those days the children loved the start of the warmer weather' then the simple past tense is the better choice. If, however, the children's enjoyment of the warmer weather is interrupted in some way, then the progressive would be better. For example, 'The children were loving the start of the warmer weather when word came that I would be transferrd to Iceland'.

The simple past tense and the progressive past tense are both accepable constructions, depending on context and on how you want the reader to react. In straight news writing I avoid progressive forms of the verb because the simple tenses have more impact and need fewer words. In essay style articles for magazines I use the progressive form when it is a better fit for the context.

There is no construction that is correct in every situation, and there is no gramatically correct construction that is 'wrong'.

edit - When I say I 'avoid' using the progressive, that does not mean I never use it. There are times when the progressive is called for even in hard news.

Awwww, yeah I didn't read it well enough. I don't usually listen to grammar either. I just went by what the sentence sounded like and the second one sounded better. Now that I look at it, I agree, the first one isn't passive. Just sounds better. My bad.

Transformation - Don't feel badly - anyone can make a mistake of that sort.

These days the wire services, who have apparently outsourced their editing to Backbushastan, seem to flaunt their disregard for correct grammar and proper usage. In my day we took a great deal of pride in putting a story on the wire with no errors and in one hundred percent compliance with the stylebook. But that was 50 years ago. Today we must be politically correct and not bother about grammar.

Please excuse an old man's rant.

hi there..
I am not sure about the word 'the start'..that is all.

Originally Posted by theorphan

I am working on my manuscript and word wants me to write "...the children loved the start of the warmer weather." But it feels more natural to write "...the children were loving the start of the warmer weather." What do you thing WF?

How does either of these sentences move the story along? When I read the sentences, I think of them in a story--of course, since hardly anyone gains recognition for writing one sentence at a time. (I'm not dissing you, that's just the truth, ok?)

If I read a story that has the sentence "the children liked warmer weather" I would tend to get bored because there is likely not a child alive anywhere that DOESN'T like warmer weather. It seems like a boring statement regardless of how you arrange the words. I would not need to be told that UNLESS this was a group of kids that really loved skiing and snowboarding, building snowmen and snow forts and so on, to the exclusion of all else. Then it might be something I needed to know about this group of kids because they would not normally be thrilled at warmer weather.

Since Kids + warm weather = then the sentence, in any arrangement, is unneeded.

I don't want to be a completely unhelpful jerk here, so I will give a short, basic illustration of what I mean:

The children were thrilled and delighted that the weather was getting warmer.

versus:

Up and down the street we could hear the sounds of kids arguing with their parents to be allowed to stay out later because the weather had gotten so much warmer.

or:

Noah got in terrible trouble with his Aunt Irma for staying out until 11 p.m. "I truly didn't know how late it was," he whimpered in the face of her scolding. "It didn't get cold by 7 like it usually does!"

or:

Suddenly I noticed that it was 70 degrees! That meant mean old Mr Blunt was going to be taking the cover off his swimming pool any day now.

(or something like that)

And others have also made worthy suggestions; show, don't tell, right?

Good luck to you and I hope this helps!

Of course context is critical - If the following sentence tells us that it only lasted fro two days before the cold returned, then were loving may be be the correct form; they were loving... but then it turned cold again. Loved implies a degree of permanance, were loving leaves an option open.

The op was not about the story, but about which of two sentence constructions is better. Bloggsworth is correct. Context is critical. Both constructions are 'correct' but only context will determine which is to be preferred.

We don't read sentences in isolation. The sentence is part of a larger structure. One cannot look at a single sentence and judge whether it's 'boring'.

Take this sentence, for example: A brown leather wallet was lying nearby. Not very interesting at all.

Now let's put it in context: Belize City Police are investigating the apparent robbery and shooting death of 58-year-old Orlando Fernandez. A Police situation report says Fernandez' body was found early this morning in the three-hundred block of West Street. Fernandez appeared to have gunshot wounds to the head and body. A brown leather wallet was lying nearby. Police say documents in the wallet indicated it belonged to Fernandez, and a witness has reported that Fernandez was seen late yesterday on Regent Street taking cash from a bank automatic teller machine. Other than the identifying documents the wallet was empty. Fernandez' body has been taken to Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital where a post mortem examination is scheduled.

So context is everything, and no sentence can be judged as good or not so good unless we see it in context.

Thank you all for your help with this. I think I have it worked out. I love the community here, always so helpful!

Microsoft word thinks it is so helpful. I often ignore what it says about grammer.