One day on a metro my cousin saw a woman who was sitting beside her with her child in

[tufguy]

One day on a metro my cousin saw a woman who was sitting beside her with her child in her hands. She had the ear bud on and her kid as well who was just one year old. One ear bud was in that woman's ear and another was in her kid's ear. My cousin asked her to remove the ear bud from that child's ear because it was harmful for him. But that woman said the child had asked for that that is why she put the ear bud in his ear. If she took it out he would start crying.

Can we say "He had the ear buds in (his ears)?

Could you please check my sentences?

 

[emsr2d2]

So many words to express a simple idea again!

One day on the metro, my cousin saw a woman and a child sharing a pair of earbuds. My cousin suggested to the woman that it's not good for a child to use earbuds but the woman said her child wanted to listen to the music and he would cry if she removed the earbud.

It would only be necessary to say where he had the earbuds if they weren't in his ears!

(Note that some people in the UK will think of the small plastic stick with a soft end, used to clean the ears, when they hear "earbud". I have left the word there because enough people know that they're little in-ear earphones.)

 

[tufguy]

It would only be necessary to say where he had the earbuds if they weren't in his ears!

Sorry, I don't understand.

Can we say "He had the ear buds in (his ears)? Or do we only need to say "He had the ear buds on"?

"My cousin saw a woman and a child sharing a pair of earbuds" shouldn't we be mentioning who she was sharing the ear buds with?

Is "Suggest" followed by "To"? I read in Raymond Murphy's grammar book that it is not followed by to.

 

[emsr2d2]

He had his earbuds in.
He had an earbud in.

It is not necessary to say "in his ears/in one ear" because the ear is the obvious place to put them.

You would need to specify the part of his anatomy in which he had inserted the earbud if it wasn't his ear. For example "The child had an earbud stuck up his nose!" or "My son had the earbuds in his mouth".

 

[emsr2d2]

1. "My cousin saw a woman and a child sharing a pair of earbuds". Shouldn't we [STRIKE]be[/STRIKE] mention [STRIKE]ing[/STRIKE] who she was sharing the ear buds with?

2. Is "suggest" followed by "to"? I read in Raymond Murphy's grammar book that it is not. [STRIKE]followed by to.[/STRIKE]

1. It is already clear who she is sharing them with. She is sharing them with the child. That's what "... a woman and a child sharing ..." means.

2. "Suggest" can be followed by "to" if it's used as a preposition before the recipient of the suggestion, as it was in my post.

"My friend suggested (to the woman) that it's not good ..."

"To" is connected to "the woman" not to "suggested". If "to the woman" were removed, it would leave "My friend suggested that it's not good ..." which is correct but you no longer know who she made the suggestion to.

 

[probus]

"A metro" is a novelty. It is the metro (EU), or the subway (AmE), or the tube or the underground (BrE). I don't think I have ever heard the indefinite article used in this context. But perhaps it is a useful idea.

 

[emsr2d2]

The definite article is certainly used more often than the indefinite article. I consider "the metro/Metro" to refer to the entire system of subway trains (in countries where it's actually called that) and "a metro" to refer to a specific train on that system.
Having said that, if someone phones me while I'm sitting on a subway train and asks where I am, I would still say "I'm on the metro/Metro".

If I had taken a journey involving travelling on three trains on the Madrid Metro, for example, and when I got home I realised I didn't have my phone, I would assume that I had left it on a metro. I wouldn't know which one of three trains I had left it on. Once I'd found it though (or if it remained lost), I would say that I had accidentally left my phone on the Metro​, the more generic term.