Teasing

A. My neighbor has ever been chased and bitten in the butt for teasing an ostrich.
B. Have you ever seen employees ganging up on a bad boss for not paying their paycheck on time?

- Do these sentences have a natural conversational tone?

Thank you so much

The 2nd sentence looks ok (paychecks, though), but I'm not sure what you want to say in the 1st one.

With the first, how many times was he chased?

Dear Waflob and Tdol!

- In this first sentence, I mean "He used to be chased and bitten by an ostrich because he teased it". I hope this time is much clearer So how can I make it more natural sounding? :-D

Thank you so much

namloan said:

- In this first sentence, I mean "He used to be chased and bitten by an ostrich because he teased it". I hope this time is much clearer

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I would be even clearer if you answered Tdol's question. How many times was he chased?

It looks like this was once, in which case I would say:

My neighbor was chased and bitten in the butt for teasing an ostrich.

namloan said:

Dear Waflob and Tdol!

- In this first sentence, I mean "He used to be chased and bitten by an ostrich because he teased it". I hope this time is much clearer So how can I make it more natural sounding? :-D

Thank you so much

Click to expand...

"He used to be chased and bitten by an ostrich because he teased it" suggests that this was a regular occurrence. I would have thought that if a person teased an ostrich once and the result was that the ostrich chased and bit them, they would not be stupid enough to tease it again.

It all depends on how many times it happened. If it only happened once, then "My neighbour was once chased and bitten by an ostrich because he teased it".

namloan said:

B. Have you ever seen employees ganging up on a bad boss for not paying their paycheck on time?

Click to expand...

... for not paying them on time.
... for not giving them their pay check on time.

But not
.. for not paying their paycheck on time.


At least for me. Perhaps "pay their paycheck" is a phrase used elsewhere.


I should think that if even ONCE you were bitten by an ostrich, you would never tease it again. Was this habitual?