[Grammar] Please check grammar , and whether sentences are colloquial.

[eggcracker]

I made transformed sentences from original sentence. Please check whether grammar is correct, and let me know which sentences are good for conversation(colloquial English).


I spotted a shooting star which, to my astonishment, was bright green in color.(Original sentence)
I spotted a shooting star, astonishingly, bright green in color.(Transformed sentence1)
I spotted a shooting star bright green in color astonisingly(Transformed sentence2)
I spotted a shoorng star bright green in color to my astonishment)(Transformed sentence3)

 

[bhaisahab]

I made transformed sentences from original sentence. Please check whether grammar is correct, and let me know which sentences are good for conversation(colloquial English).


I spotted a shooting star which, to my astonishment, was bright green in color.(Original sentence)
I spotted a shooting star, astonishingly, bright green in color.(Transformed sentence1)
I spotted a shooting star bright green in color astonisingly(Transformed sentence2)
I spotted a shoorng star bright green in color to my astonishment)(Transformed sentence3)

They all sound pretty unnatural to me. Even the original is a bit stilted for normal conversation.

 

[eggcracker]

So the original is the last resort for conversation?


------(not a teacher)

 

[a_vee]

There is no colloquialism that I can see, so I agree with bhaisahab. You're using formal, "pretty" English, which is fine under the right circumstances. "Bright green in color" is harder to say than "bright green" and conversational English is basically lazy.

Here's my take.

Very informal and colloquial : The other day I saw this bright green shooting star! It was awesome!
Informal: I saw a bright green shooting star. I was amazed.

 

[CarloSsS]

Would somebody please tell me if the following are natural?

I spotted a shooting star and was astonished by its bright green color.
I spotted a shooting star and was astonished by its color --- it was bright green. (Maybe a comma instead of the dash would be better?)
I spotted a shooting star and was astonished by its color --- bright green.
I was astonished to spot a bright green shooting star.

 

[a_vee]

Would somebody please tell me if the following are natural?

I spotted a shooting star and was astonished by its bright green color.
I spotted a shooting star and was astonished by its color; it was bright green. (Maybe a comma instead of the dash would be better?)
I spotted a shooting star and was astonished by its color, bright green.
I was astonished to spot a bright green shooting star.

These are beautiful sentences. They sound like a novel. They are natural, but not informal. The thing is that "astonished" is elegant English. You can see what I did with the punctuation.

Semicolons ( are suitable substitutes for a comma-conjunction combo (,and).

The last sentence has "color" re-named as "bright green". That's called an appositive, and those are always set off by commas.

For example:
The coach, Mr. Jenkins, was hard to please.

This is just a personal opinion: I would say "saw" instead of "spotted", because shooting stars are really fast. I have never used "to spot" with something that was gone in a split second.


Good job with "its", by the way. Its = possessive It's = it is contraction

 

[emsr2d2]

Would somebody please tell me if the following are natural?

I spotted a shooting star and was astonished by its bright green color. OK.
I spotted a shooting star and was astonished by its color --- it was bright green. (Maybe a comma instead of the dash would be better?) Why do you have three dashes in a row?
I spotted a shooting star and was astonished by its color --- bright green. Why do you have three dashes in a row?
I was astonished to spot a bright green shooting star. OK, although it's not clear whether you were astonished by the sight of a shooting star or specifically by the sight of a bright green one.

See above.

 

[CarloSsS]

These are beautiful sentences. They sound like a novel. They are natural, but not informal. The thing is that "astonished" is elegant English. You can see what I did with the punctuation.

Semicolons ( are suitable substitutes for a comma-conjunction combo (,and).

The last sentence has "color" re-named as "bright green". That's called an appositive, and those are always set off by commas.

For example:
The coach, Mr. Jenkins, was hard to please.

This is just a personal opinion: I would say "saw" instead of "spotted", because shooting stars are really fast. I have never used "to spot" with something that was gone in a split second.


Good job with "its", by the way. Its = possessive It's = it is contraction

Thank you for your praise. I'm an advanced student, so the usage of "it's" and "its" is quite clear to me. For me, these things are the basics of English (I mean that when I use it correctly I can't be proud of it).

Do I understand it correctly that the last sentence should have been written like this?
I was astonished to spot, a bright green, shooting star.
or
I was astonished to spot a, bright green, shooting star.

As for the wording of my sentences, I didn't chose the words. I was merely trying to rephrase the original sentence that the threadstarter provided in his first post in his thread.

to emsr2d2:
That is a good question. I used (---) because I recently took a course in typography and found out what the deal with typing dashes and hyphens is. This '-' is a hyphen, used to join words as in "yellowy-green" and this "--" or this "---" are dashes used similarly as I used them 2 posts above. This is just a simplification because there are more of these signs, such as ‒, –, —, ―. I used "---" because I was too lazy to find and copy this one "—".

 

[emsr2d2]

I am impressed that you would consider taking the time to use the correct type of dash! If I were proofreading or editing, I would bother but here, I use the same symbol as a hyphen and as a dash. I just put a space either side of a hyphen to use it as a dash. You've made me feel rather lazy! ;-)

 

[CarloSsS]

It's nothing to be felt lazy of. (is that even a natural sentence?)

Most people use it incorrectly in all but formal writing. I'm just a hairsplitter who indulges himself in nuances such as these.

Btw. similar topic is the so called typewriter apostrophe ' . Instead the punctuation apostrophe ’ should be used. However, few people use it on the Internet properly.

 

[emsr2d2]

It's nothing to be felt lazy of. (is that even a natural sentence?)
It's nothing to feel lazy about. (Actually, now I've written that down, that doesn't sound natural either!)
You're not being lazy! (Ah, that's better!)

Most people use it incorrectly in all but formal writing. I'm just a hairsplitter who indulges himself in nuances such as these.

;-)

 

[CarloSsS]

Saying "You're not being lazy!" doesn't capture what I wanted to say. What I wanted to express by that sentence is that you maybe are lazy, but you shouldn't bother feeling lazy since most of the other people don't feel lazy either. Do you see what I mean? It lacks the expression of feeling lazy. Thus your sentence "It's nothing to feel lazy about." is much more accurate however unnatural it is.

 

[a_vee]

No, sorry.

I was astonished to spot a bright green shooting star.

"Bright green" doesn't actually rename the star; it only describes it. Renaming is the signature of the appositive. Some languages commonly say "greens" or "reds", when in English, we have to say "green ones" or "red ones" in the majority of cases.

"Bright green" is an adjective in your example.

I was astonished to see a bright green streak of light, a shooting star. <Here's an appositive. "A shooting star" renames "streak of light", see? Appositives always contain nouns.

 

[CarloSsS]

Just to be clear, were you mistaken when you said that "bright green" was an appositive? Or did I just misunderstand?

 

[a_vee]

Would somebody please tell me if the following are natural?

I spotted a shooting star and was astonished by its bright green Adjective color.
I spotted a shooting star and was astonished by its color --- it was bright green. Adjective (Maybe a comma instead of the dash would be better?)
I spotted a shooting star and was astonished by its color --- bright green. Appositive re-naming color
I was astonished to spot a bright green Adjective shooting star.

Bright green is synonymous with color.

Thank you for asking. The part of speech is determined by function.

(You're gonna be better than the natives if you keep this up.)

 

[5jj]

I used (---) because I recently took a course in typography and found out what the deal with typing dashes and hyphens is. This '-' is a hyphen, used to join words as in "yellowy-green" and this "--" or this "---" are dashes used similarly as I used them 2 posts above. This is just a simplification because there are more of these signs, such as ‒, –, —, ―. I used "---" because I was too lazy to find and copy this one "—".

In British English, only a single 'dash' is considered correct. I put the word 'dash' in inverted commas, because the typographer would distinguish between an en-dash and and em-dash - most of us don't bother with such things.