posted
I have been working on a story seriously for awhile now, and as I go through to edit it a couple of questions have come up for which I could use some help…..here is one of them…
Which of the following is(are) correct/incorrect? And why?
1) “He bent and placed the lettuce into one of the dozen terrariums which sat in the center of the white ceramic floor.”
Or
2) “…. into one of the dozen terrariums which sat on the center of the white ceramic floor.
or
3) “….into one of the dozen terrariums which sat, in the center, on the white ceramic floor.”
4) or (and this one does not sound right to my ear…
“…into one of the dozen terrariums which sat centrally on the white ceramic floor.
Or is there a better way to say all of that?
Thanks in advance for any help!
PS …I have been lurking here for awhile and have learned a lot….not ready for fragments yet, but working at it…..also I think it was in on this forum that I got clued to http://www.bartleby.com/141/strunk1.html which have been helpful and I have been working through it. But I have had a hard time keeping it all in my head! Also tried to search for a previous thread on this topic…but if you try searching “use of in on” you will know why I will apologize for asking this if it had has been discussed before.
posted
My problem is with placing the lettuce "into" something.
It sounds wrong. I think it should be placing the lettuce "in" the whatever. You might shove something into a whatever but place feels like it needs the in instead.
posted
Is the plural of "terrarium" not "terraria"?
Since twelve things can't all be at the centre of the room, I would just leave out that part of it, or maybe cover it elsewhere (are they stacked together, in a line, in some neat geometrical pattern, etc etc - if it matters, tell us, if not, leave it be).
posted
Wow! We have a saying in my profession “get 5 beekeepers together and you get 7 opinions, six of which are right….” I don’t know maybe for writers its more like 10 and 9…..
Seriously thanks to everyone for the pointers,,,,
I guess like spaceman and corky suggest ...if its not needed leave it out.
Tchernabyelo – does this sentence really imply all twelve are in the center of the room? I assumed, since one of the twelve _terraria_ was identified the rest of the sentence would refer to that particular terrarium (…..you know the one the lettuce was placed in. (and boy saying placed _in_ really has me wanting to say placed into, is _placed into_ really wrong?)
posted
No..."in" is sometimes allowed to mean "into", but only with verbs where the "into" is naturally implied. You can jog in your underpants, you can jog in your house, nothing about doing either indicates that you had to start jogging while out of your underpants or your house.
Posts: 8322 | Registered: Aug 1999
| IP: Logged |
Sentance one conveys that the terrairiums are grouped in the center of the floor and therefore works. All the others seem like fussy attempts to be gramtically correct.
But I have to question broader things:
First, the lack of specificity of which terrarium gets the lettuce: Is this a deliberate hiding of a fact? Why not the third or fourth? Or is it that there is only one occupied terrarium and the rest are empty for some important reason?
Second, also about lack of specificity: What is meant by a "ceramic floor?" Ceramic is a very generic term. Is the floor made of ceramic tiles or was the floor cast as one piece in a kiln? Would white tile work better than white ceramic? Should the reader care if the floor is made of baked clay or linoleum? Is this an attempt to get the reades to visualize the floor or is it to convey important information to the plot--that the floor is hard and resistant?
Hoo boy, one sentence and we're devining deep questions! Meta point:
What does the sentence need to do? Are we informing the reader about plot or setting? Feeding critters in terrariums is plot, describing floors is setting. Can this be broken into two simpler sentences?
posted
Definitely #1. The only reason to imagine that #2 might be right is that the terrariums are "on the floor." And it might well be better to simply say that. But, as the sentence is phrased, you have to use the right preposition for the right object: [placed where?] "in the center" [which center?] "of the floor." Diagram it, and you can't get it wrong.
Oh, another way #2 could be right would be if "the center," instead of merely identifying a place, meant some particular identifiable object--say a round bull's eye painted in the middle of the room that everyone called "the center." You could place the terrariums "on" that.
Printer-friendly view of this topic
It also turns "center" into an adverb, which sucks out whatever life "sat" had to start with.
