[General] Is there still ANYTHING wrong with this revised sentence?

[ohmyrichard]

Dear teachers,

Happy New Year!

Would you please help me with this language issue? This morning I came across a sentence in my student's writing assignment, which goes, "The first time I think of this question was the caption under a poster of a school event I saw yesterday: 'The dancing party will from 6:30-8:30 pm on 1 January, 2014.' " I revised it as follows:

The first time that I thought of the question was when last week I saw at the bottom of a poster for a school event the caption, which read, 'The dance party will be from 6:30- 8:30 pm on 1 January, 2014.'

My question is, Is there still ANYTHING wrong with my revision? Would it be better if I change the underlined part of the sentence back to the normal word order of "the caption at the bottom of a poster for a school event"? Please point out anything wrong with it that you native speakers of English feel is still unnatural in terms of sentence structure or word usage or even punctuation. THANKS!

Wishing you and all yours a happy and prosperous new year ahead!

Richard

 

[emsr2d2]

Dear teachers,

Happy New Year!

Please help me with this language issue. This morning I came across a sentence in my student's writing assignment, which goes, "The first time I think of this question was the caption under a poster of a school event I saw yesterday: 'The dancing party will from 6:30-8:30 pm." I revised it as follows:

The first time that I thought of the question was when last weekend I saw at the bottom of a poster for a school event the caption, which read, 'The party will be from 6:30- 8:30 pm on 1 January, 2013.'

My question is, Is there still ANYTHING wrong with my revision? Would it be better if I change the underlined part of the sentence back to the normal word order of "the caption at the bottom of a poster for a school event"? Please point out anything wrong with it that you native speakers of English still feel is unnatural in terms of sentence structure or word usage. THANKS!

Wishing you and all yours a happy and prosperous new year ahead!

Richard

I would write it as follows:

The first time [that] I thought of the question was last weekend when I saw, at the bottom of a poster for a school event, the caption "The party will be from 6.30-8.30pm on 1 January 2013".

I assume that it was your student's typo that made it 2013 instead of 2014 (or was that the question which occurred to her?)

 

[ohmyrichard]

I would write it as follows:

The first time [that] I thought of the question was last weekend when I saw, at the bottom of a poster for a school event, the caption "The party will be from 6.30-8.30pm on 1 January 2013".

I assume that it was your student's typo that made it 2013 instead of 2014 (or was that the question which occurred to her?)

I am sorry that it was my typo. I have corrected it.

Thanks for your improvement. After I revised the student's sentence, on second thought I felt quite uneasy about the part of "the caption, which read, 'The party will be from 6.30-8.30pm on 1 January 2014.'", which is place after "at the bottom of a poster for a school event", but I did not know how to further improve it. I knew that "the caption" placed together with its modifier(the relative clause) helps avoid ambiguity, and I also seemed to have sensed some clumsiness in this arrangement of "the caption" followed by a comma and the non-restrictive relative clause, but I did not know and still do not know what the problem is. Would you please tell me what is wrong with "the caption, which read, 'The party will be from 6.30-8.30pm on 1 January 2014.'"? Thanks.

 

[emsr2d2]

I just find "the caption, which read" a little tautologous. A caption is a written statement under a picture or a photo (or in this case, at the bottom of a poster) so a caption always "reads" something.

 

[ohmyrichard]

I just find "the caption, which read" a little tautologous. A caption is a written statement under a picture or a photo (or in this case, at the bottom of a poster) so a caption always "reads" something.

Thanks for your great explanation.
I have read your first reply again and found something which is more important to me. I have noticed that in your revision you placed "last weekend" before "when". Why not "when last weekend..."? I am in desperate need of your help with this part of the revision. Thanks.

 

[Rover_KE]

Those still interested in this thread can read more here.

 

[emsr2d2]

Those still interested in this thread can read more here.

Thanks for that, Rover.

ohmyrichard, please don't waste our time. If you are already having a discussion in a forum, then please keep the discussion in that forum. If, after the discussion is over, you have any queries which cannot (for some reason) be dealt with on that forum, then you can come here for more help but please make sure that you make it clear that you have already discussed it at length in a different forum and explain why you are still having problems.

 

[ohmyrichard]

Thanks for that, Rover.

ohmyrichard, please don't waste our time. If you are already having a discussion in a forum, then please keep the discussion in that forum. If, after the discussion is over, you have any queries which cannot (for some reason) be dealt with on that forum, then you can come here for more help but please make sure that you make it clear that you have already discussed it at length in a different forum and explain why you are still having problems.

Thanks for reminding me of it. But I would like to know whether I have violated any rule of this forum for having a discussion in two forums simultaneously. It seems to me that English is a very tricky language so oftentimes different native speakers have different understandings of the same issue. I wanted to get advice from as many native speakers as possible so as to put the language issue in perspective. If I have breached a rule of this forum, I will apologize for it.