scurrying

[Do228]

Which verbs can be used here?

I stood in the middle of an overcrowded place with thousands of little earthlings ....................... around me.

scurrying
scuttling
swarming
bustling
hurry-scurrying

 

[Skrej]

I thought we'd addressed the issue of 'earthlings', albeit with humorous deprecation in another post. To be completely serious, 'earthlings' is inappropriate here.

Unless, of course, this is from science fiction literature, with the speaker being from another planet.typo,

 

[GeneD]

I thought'd we'd addressed .

I've never seen or heard such an interesting contraction as the underlined above. Is it 'had' or 'would'? Or a typo?

 

[GeneD]

I even consider that it might be 'that'. Really curious.

 

[emsr2d2]

It's a typo. It should say "I thought we'd ..."

 

[Skrej]

Yes, it's just a typo. :-(

 

[probus]

Which verbs can be used here?

I stood in the middle of an overcrowded place with thousands of little earthlings ....................... around me.

scurrying
scuttling
swarming
bustling
hurry-scurrying

Scurrying and scuttling have strong negative connotations. They are what rodents and cockroaches do.

If you want to be neutral I recomnend bustling.

 

[Skrej]

Who knows what opinions of us earthlings an alien might have?

Heck, sometimes I question my own species, as a whole.