Answer to yesterday's puzzle:
Mumbling Mary nailed it. "Whelps" means "pups," but in the South one often hears it in place of "welts," or bumps on the skin.
I hoped to distract readers with the awkward but correct use of "waked," the past-participial of "wake." The Brits prefer "woken," according to the Oxford Dictionary of Usage and Style, which sounds only slightly less awkward.
American Heritage College Dictionary: "The pairs 'wake, waken' and 'awake, awaken' have formed a bewildering array since the Middle English period. All four words have similar meanings, though there are some differences in use."
Here are 15 forms of the word: Wake, woke, had (or has, have, were) waked, had woken, awake, awoke, had awaked, had awoken, awaken, awakened, had awakened, wake up, woke up, had waked up, had woken up.
Today's puzzle (spot the error):
Anxious to begin building, the terms of the loan were excepted by Randall.
Today's tip:
Don't be too quick to insert commas between adjectives in a series preceding a noun.
Wrong: The shiny, red, sports car caught her eye.
Right: The shiny red sports car caught her eye.
How do you know? Insert "and" where the commas are. "The shiny and red and sports car caught her eye." If it sounds strange the commas are not needed.
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5 comments:
The sentence should be changed to, "Anxious to begin building, RANDALL excepted the terms of the loan." The way it stands now, "the terms of the loan" were anxious to begin building. It could also be, "Randall excepted the terms of the loan as he was anxious to begin building."
I think he accepted the terms although he may have wanted to except them because then the terms would have been left out.
Except for my confusion on how this sentence would be diagramed, I believe it is acceptable the way it is. I expect, however, that you will find an exception and dismiss my conclusion as unacceptable.
And in yesterday's lesson, wouldn't "had waked" be akin to "had went?" Just asking...
Also, took an informal poll at my gym yesterday on "whelp" vs "welt" and, sure enough, fully half of the folks thought a whelp was a welt.
"Excepted" should be changed to "accepted". The rest may be correct, but the construction of this sentence is awkward. There are several ways it could be written that would sound better.
Note to word nerd:
I forgot to cite the source of the second quote:
It is the Oxford Dictionary of American Usage and Style.
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