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tough

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I had gone to a resturant last week ,the gaurd who parked the car hit it agaimt the wall and didnt tell us about it,luckily when one of my friend went out to smoke he saw him looking at the part of the car which was damged so we came to know that it was the gaurd who damaged it.The dickey was little damged and colour was also scratched at the backside of the car..
(Please help me to describe this in advance level,also what i have written above is it correct?)
 

emsr2d2

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I had gone to a resturant last week ,the gaurd who parked the car hit it agaimt the wall and didnt tell us about it,luckily when one of my friend went out to smoke he saw him looking at the part of the car which was damged so we came to know that it was the gaurd who damaged it.The dickey was little damged and colour was also scratched at the backside of the car..
(Please help me to describe this in advance level,also what i have written above is it correct?)

I went to a restaurant last week and asked the parking attendant to park my car. While parking it, he drove it into a wall but he didn't own up to it. Fortunately, when my friend went outside to have a cigarette, he saw the guy looking at the part of the car that had been damaged and that's how we found out that it was the parking attendant who had caused the damage.

The ??????? (dickey? this is not a part of a car!) was only damaged a little and there was a scratch to the paintwork on the back of the car.

Notes: a "guard" (note spelling) suggests a security guard of some kind, not normally the person who parks your car for you. I believe that in the US, this is known as "valet parking" but I'm not entirely sure what the job title is of the person who actually parks the car. It's not common in the UK.
 

tough

Member
Joined
Jun 3, 2010
Member Type
Student or Learner
I went to a restaurant last week and asked the parking attendant to park my car. While parking it, he drove it into a wall but he didn't own up to it. Fortunately, when my friend went outside to have a cigarette, he saw the guy looking at the part of the car that had been damaged and that's how we found out that it was the parking attendant who had caused the damage.

The ??????? (dickey? this is not a part of a car!) was only damaged a little and there was a scratch to the paintwork on the back of the car.

Notes: a "guard" (note spelling) suggests a security guard of some kind, not normally the person who parks your car for you. I believe that in the US, this is known as "valet parking" but I'm not entirely sure what the job title is of the person who actually parks the car. It's not common in the UK.
Hi thanks for your help,just had a query , There was a scartch to the paint work so is scratch plural over here because there were many scratches at the back of the car so how do we say this also were you have mentioned that he drove it into the wall is there a particular word for it like he dashed it against the wall..may be some other word because i dont think i can use dashed.thanks
 
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emsr2d2

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Hi thanks for your help,just had a query , There was a scartch to the paint work so is scratch plural over here because there were many scratches at the back of the car so how do we say this also were you have mentioned that he drove it into the wall is there a particular word for it like he dashed it against the wall..may be some other word because i dont think i can use dashed.thanks

Scratch is singular, scratches plural. If you simply say "the paintwork was scratched" then it doesn't specify whether there was one or more scratches. To be more specific, you would have to say "There was a scratch..." or "There were several scratches..."

The word for what he actually did to the car depends on a few things. If he was driving it fast and it hit the wall, then he crashed it into the wall, or even smashed it into the wall. However, the fact that there was little damage suggests otherwise. If he was moving backwards, then he reversed it into the wall. If he was moving forwards fairly slowly, then he simply drove it into the wall. If the wall was to the side and the damage had been to the door, then he would have scraped it along the wall.

There are a couple of slang(ish) words in BrE that can be used : to prang and to ding.

He pranged the car = He had some kind of accident and the car is damaged in some way.

He dinged the car = He dented it (a minor accident).

For more major accidents/damage, we have more choices:

He crashed the car.
He smashed the car up.
He wrecked the car.
He totalled the car.
He wrote the car off.
 
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