Months of abuse

[Bassim]

These two sentences popped up in my mind. Would you please correct my grammar and punctuation?

Months of abuse in a prison camp dulled his emotions. Later, whenever he heard people complaining about a cold and headaches, he laughed inside himself.

 

[teechar]

These two sentences popped up in my mind. Would you please correct my grammar and punctuation?

Months of abuse in a prison camp dulled his emotions. Later, whenever he heard people complaining about a cold and headaches, he laughed inside himself.

I would change "a cold" to "colds" and "inside himself" to "in his mind."

 

[Tarheel]

Perhaps:

After spending months inside a prison camp everyday aches and pains meant nothing to him, and he was amused when he heard people complain about their colds and headaces.

 

[Bassim]

Tarheel,
I appreciate your contribution, but my version is more concise. I think that if my sentences were part of a short story, my version would be better. But this is only my feeling.

 

[tedmc]

Is "laugh in one's mind" a standard expession?
Is there another way to express it?
How about "laugh to oneself"?

 

[Tarheel]

Is "laugh in one's mind" a standard expession?
Is there another way to express it?
How about "laugh to oneself"?

That's good.

 

[Tarheel]

You could also say:

He laughed to himself.

 

[Tarheel]

Tarheel,
I appreciate your contribution, but my version is more concise. I think that if my sentences were part of a short story, my version would be better. But this is only my feeling.

I believe you are thinking about writing one. I think that by this point in the story the reader will already know about Van's experiences in the prison camp. Little will need to be said. What do you think?

 

[Bassim]

Tarheel,
Just now I do not write any story, although they are buzzing constantly in my mind. I am trying to improve my written English so that in future I can avoid making so many mistakes. I ask these questions about some words after I have seen them in different texts. I write them all down, and I try to use them in my own sentences. It is good to know if I have used them correctly, or if I have made mistakes. You have to have a reference point so that you do not get lost in a maze.

 

[Roman55]

Tarheel,
I appreciate your contribution, but my version is more concise. I think that if my sentences were part of a short story, my version would be better. But this is only my feeling.

If it's concision you're after, just change 'a cold' to 'colds' as teechar suggested, and drop the last word. '…he laughed inside.'

 

[emsr2d2]

You've been helped with the conciseness (concision) already but I'm concerned about the logic. What does the dulling of his emotions in prison have to do with his laughing inside when other people have a cold or a headache? I can understand that he thinks that their problems are very mild when compared with the probable hell he went through in prison but that has nothing to do with his emotions being dulled.

 

[Bassim]

emsr2d2,
Honestly, when I wrote these two sentences I was mostly concentrated on the word "dull his emotion". I wanted to see if I can use it in my sentence. The second sentence popped up instantly in my mind, I wrote it down without thinking about logic. I was mostly concern with grammar and punctuation. This was just an exercise. But If I have written a short story or some other text, I would have probably been more careful with the choice of my words.

 

[emsr2d2]

OK, but bear in mind that when you post sentences here, we will try to make sense of them. If you had said in post #1, "I am simply trying to use the phrase 'dull his emotion'. Is the following sentence correct?", you could just have posted the sentence about prison and left it at that.

If I posted "I have a black cat so my hair is very long" without making it clear that I am asking only if it is grammatically correct, correctly capitalised and punctuated etc, but I have no interest in the logic of it, I would expect plenty of people to say "But that doesn't make sense. What does having a black cat have to do with the length of your hair?"

Try to make your examples logical in future.

 

[Tarheel]

It's an interesting subject, Bassim. It merits further discussion.

 

[Rover_KE]

Maybe it does, but only for a limited number of members.

For this reason I am moving it to the General Language Discussion forum.

 

[Tarheel]

I know that it's probably not a language discussion, but I think that living under those conditions (being an inmate in a prison camp) may make a person less sensitive to certain things. On the other hand, such an experience may very well (not surprisingly) make a person more sensitive to certain things.

I am, I think, more sensitive to criticism than before. I am more careful in what I say. I am well aware of my memory problems, and that makes me feel less confident. I am still willing to say things, but I might till somebody else says something and then agree with him rather than expressing myself outright.

Well, I have talked about myself enough. Back to the subject. How do you cope with being in a prison camp for months? How do you handle it? How do you cope with life after you get out and have to deal with having changed on the inside?