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WingsToDiscovery (Offline)
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Posts: 905
Join Date: May 2010
Location: Azabu-juban, Tokyo
12-03-2010, 12:22 PM

Quote:
Originally Posted by protheus View Post
How else to explain to someone something, simultaneously avoiding hurting their feelings?!? Answer: Provide an alternate explanation. That's what I did.

Maybe you're right, but point out what is wrong in the (way I written that in the) quote.
"How you written it" doesn't make sense. If it were "How you've written it, or "How you wrote it," then it would be correct.
But because you wrote it the way you did, it then messed up the next part "...,it has ambiguous meaning..." which also doesn't make sense when having it structured like "it, it." You've used "it" like a conjunction when it's not; it's a pronoun. This in turn leads to an unnecessary comma splice that doesn't need to be there.
So, you could have written something like:
"How you've written it has an ambiguous meaning, especially for a beginner in English, the kind you're looking for."
OR
"How/The way you wrote it has an ambiguous meaning, especially for a beginner in English, the kind you're looking for."

Then there's the matter of deciding whether to either omit or alter the last part "the kind you're looking for," but that's picky and unnecessary.


I'm not a cynic; I just like to play Devil's Advocate once in a while.
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