[Grammar] A smile spread across Brad's face

[Nikitus]

Hello.

Are the following sentences grammatically correct?

"A smile spread across Brad's face, a thin man of average height, fond of art and elegant to dress, who didn't expect to suddenly meet his friend Sophia."

Thanks.


(I wrote the text)

 

[emsr2d2]

It doesn't work with that word order. It looks as if his face is a "thin man ...". Try this:

A thin man of average height, fond of art and elegantly dressed, Brad was not expecting to meet his friend Sophia; when he bumped into her, a smile spread across his face.

 

[tedmc]

How about this?

A smile spread across his face as Brad, a thin man of average height, fond of art and elegantly dressed, didn't expect to suddenly meet his friend Sophia.

 

[Tarheel]

Put the two things closer together. (As in post #2.) Example: "A smile spread across his face when he saw Sophia."

 

[emsr2d2]

How about this?

A smile spread across his face as Brad, a thin man of average height, fond of art and elegantly dressed, didn't expect to suddenly meet his friend Sophia.

Are you using "as" to mean "because"? If not, the ending needs to be changed to something like "... unexpectedly met his friend Sophia".

 

[Tarheel]

For some reason ESL learners seem to be especially fond of the word "suddenly".

 

[tedmc]

Are you using "as" to mean "because"? If not, the ending needs to be changed to something like "... unexpectedly met his friend Sophia".

"As" in my sentence means "because". I was trying to keep to the original sentence as much as possible. "Suddenly meet", which sounds okay in two Asian languages I know, does sound a bit odd in English but I think is understandable. It would be better if "didn't expect suddenly" is changed to "unexpectedly".

 

[TheParser]

"A smile spread across Brad's face, a thin man of average height, fond of art and elegant to dress, who didn't expect to suddenly meet his friend Sophia."

NOT A TEACHER

Nikitus, I think that you are crowding too many details into one sentence, which will only confuse your listeners/readers.

So maybe something like the following might be more effective: "A wide smile spread across Brad's face when he ran into his friend Sophia on the street."

You can describe Brad in later sentences. For example: "Both Sophia and he were fond of art" and "Sophia admired her elegantly dressed friend."

 

[tedmc]

I agree with The Parser that the sentence should have been split into two. The important thing is it was a chance encounter. The details of Brad can come in in the second sentence. As always, a long sentence is not necessarily better than two shorter sentences.

 

[Tdol]

It is a bit of a dog's dinner of a sentence- flying out in different directions at the same time.

 

[Tarheel]

It was a chance encounter.

That would make a good lead-in. Perhaps:

It was a chance encounter. He didn't expect to see her, but he was happy that he did.