Anything wrong here?

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ooohlala

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Cornwall lies in the south of England.

No guests are allowed in the night. (I understand that 'at night' is more commonly used but I would like to know if this is wrong per se)

Is there anything wrong with these sentences?
 

riquecohen

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1- correct.
2- "at night" is correct, "in the night" is not.
 

emsr2d2

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Cornwall lies in the south of England.

No guests are allowed in the night. (I understand that 'at night' is more commonly used but I would like to know if this is wrong per se)

Is there anything wrong with these sentences?

Do you mean that guests are not allowed to sleep in the room? If so, then I prefer:

No overnight guests.

However, if you mean that guests are not allowed to visit, even for a short time, during the night then:

No guests permitted at night.
 

ooohlala

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Okay, but how would you fill in this blank then?

No guests are allowed ____ the night.
 

TheParser

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Cornwall lies in the south of England.

No guests are allowed in the night. (I understand that 'at night' is more commonly used but I would like to know if this is wrong per se)

Is there anything wrong with these sentences?



NOT A TEACHER

I believe that "No guests are allowed in the night" might be

"good" English if it means:

No guests are allowed in [during] the night.

That is, you may have overnight guests, but no guests will be

allowed to enter the building during the night. Any overnight guests

must have entered the building before, say, 10 p.m.
 

emsr2d2

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Okay, but how would you fill in this blank then?

No guests are allowed ____ the night.

The short answer? If you're only looking for one word, I wouldn't! I would still change the sentence.

As The Parser said, if it means that no guests will be permitted to enter the building during the night, then you would still need to say:

No guests are allowed in during the night. (No guests are allowed in = No guests are allowed to enter the building)

If for some reason, you absolutely have to use your original sentence and only one word can be added, then I would choose "during".
 

ooohlala

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No guests are allowed during the night.

No guests are allowed in the night.

What is the difference and does this make the second sentence totally wrong then?
 

emsr2d2

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1) No guests are allowed during the night.

2) No guests are allowed in the night.

What is the difference and does this make the second sentence totally wrong then?

In my opinion:

1) This means that guests are not allowed to stay in the room/hotel/accommodation during the hours of night-time.

2) If I read this, I would not understand what the rules were. I would not know if it meant that guests could not stay the night, or if they could not arrive during the night.

Is there some reason why you're so keen to use "in the night"?
 

ooohlala

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Yes, yes I have a reason. 'In' is what I wrote on a test I had recently. :-|If I'd had my way I would have written the sentence differently but it was a fill-in-the-blanks question. All right anyway. Thank you :)
 

Rover_KE

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More accurately, Cornwall lies in the south west of England.

Rover
 

cubezero3

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"Cornwall is in the south west of England." I said exactly the same sentence a few weeks back. Then a teacher from England told me that this sentence is ok. Then he said "Cornwall is southwestern England." is much better.
 

Rover_KE

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Well, this teacher disagrees with him/her.

Rover
 

emsr2d2

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"Cornwall is in the south west of England." I said exactly the same sentence a few weeks back. Then a teacher from England told me that this sentence is ok. Then he said "Cornwall is southwestern England." is much better.

Can I assume the teacher who told you that wasn't a native English speaker? Not only is southwestern not an improvement on south-west, but he also managed to leave out the preposition "in"! Let's hope he/she is a history teacher!! :-D
 
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