Tenses

panicmonger · Oct 18, 2010

The falling branch struck the car from above as it fell/was falling?

Could you tell me which one is better? and the reason why?

Kamsahamnida !! (Thank you in Korean)

By the way, does "rather" mean a 'slight' or 'some' degree?
I am very confused about this because some says it is fairly, but some quite.

billmcd · Oct 18, 2010

panicmonger said:
The falling branch struck the car from above as it fell/was falling?

Could you tell me which one is better? and the reason why?

Kamsahamnida !! (Thank you in Korean)

By the way, does "rather" mean a 'slight' or 'some' degree?
I am very confused about this because some says it is fairly, but some quite.

Both "fell" or "was falling" are OK, but the use of the preceding "falling" makes either one redundant.

Your definition is more precise/descriptive than what "some" suggest. But "rather" can have other meanings, e.g. instead, to the contrary, more correctly, more precisely etc.

2006 · Oct 18, 2010

panicmonger said:
The falling branch struck the car. [STRIKE]from above as it fell/was falling?[/STRIKE] All the words after "car" are unnecessary.
Could you tell me which one is better? and the reason why?

Kamsahamnida !! (Thank you in Korean)

By the way, does "rather" mean a 'slight' or 'some' degree? "rather" is more than "slight". It means to a (noticeable)(moderate) degree.
I am very confused about this because some says it is fairly, but some quite. I would say that "quite" is 'a little' more than "fairly" and that "quite" is the better synonym for "rather". Let's see what others think.

2006

Pedroski · Oct 19, 2010

The words may be necessary: he may be in a place where things fall upwards!

2006 · Oct 19, 2010

Pedroski said:
The words may be necessary: he may be in a place where things fall upwards!

What place could that be?

Pedroski · Oct 19, 2010

Is it not equally valid to assume the Earth falls upwards to the stick? Didn't Einstein say that? I think the maths is the same, just use a minus where you would use a plus.

2006 · Oct 19, 2010

Pedroski said:
Is it not equally valid to assume the Earth falls upwards to the stick? Didn't Einstein say that? I think the maths is the same, just use a minus where you would use a plus.

Well I'm no Einstein but I think that's unlikely. The mass and gravitational attraction of the earth is gazillions of times that of the branch, so I think it's much more reasonable to say that the branch falls toward the earth.

In any case, that's what the OP assumes, and I see no good reason to question that.

corum · Oct 19, 2010

Pedroski said:
Is it not equally valid to assume the Earth falls upwards to the stick?

Valid, but what bearing does it have on the futile reiteration of "falling"?

Pedroski said:
Didn't Einstein say that?

You probably meant Newton and not Einstein, right?

Pedroski said:
I think the maths is the same, just use a minus where you would use a plus.

Correct. Again, it is out of the scope of the question. If overcomplicating the simplest things were a discipline, you would be a professor.

corum · Oct 19, 2010

2006 said:
Well I'm no Einstein but I think that's unlikely.

Not unlikely: motions are relative to what we choose as the referential point of a given motion we would like to describe.

2006 said:
I think it's much more reasonable to say that the branch falls toward the earth

More conventional. :up:

Tenses

panicmonger

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billmcd

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2006

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Pedroski

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2006

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Pedroski

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2006

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corum

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corum

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