[General] go moldy

[Ashiuhto]

I post the paragraph on another forum, but got no response. Is it natural English? Please help me correct it. Thanks!


For one thing, disposable chopsticks which are mostly made from bamboo in factories are hazardous to health. Bamboo chopsticks are very likely to go moldy, so that chopstick manufacturers use industrial sulfur dioxide (SO[SUB]2[/SUB]), which is known to cause damage to the respiratory system, to fumigate and kill mold and hydrogen peroxide to bleach the sticks, so they look white, clean and more attractive. But few people know they are not as clean as they seem.

 

[emsr2d2]

I posted the paragraph on another forum (no comma required here) but got no response. Is it natural English? Please help me correct it. Thanks!

For one thing, disposable chopsticks, which are mostly made from bamboo in factories, are hazardous to health. Bamboo chopsticks are very likely to go moldy, so [strike]that[/strike] chopstick manufacturers use industrial sulfur dioxide (SO[SUB]2[/SUB]), which is known to cause damage to the respiratory system, to fumigate and kill mold, and hydrogen peroxide to bleach the sticks (no comma required here) so they look white, clean and more attractive. [strike]But[/strike] Few people know they are not as clean as they seem.

"Go mouldy" works fine in BrE. Note the different spelling of "mouldy" in BrE. There are some issues with the paragraph you posted though. See my corrections above.

 

[MikeNewYork]

In AmE,"get moldy" would be more common.

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

Yup. And at least in American, it's fine to start a sentence with But, Or, or And.

To explain the comma advice you got: I can only think of five correct uses of commas:

- to separate lists or series of more than two items: dogs, rabbits, or worms / a pile of clothes, several boxes of broken toys, and a diary written by the missing prisoner (Some people don't put commas before and and or. That's fine, but be consistent.)
- to separate independent clauses (that is, clauses that could stand alone as sentences: She could, and she did. (She could. She did.) He washed them, and he sold them. (He washed them. He sold them.) He was happy, but she wasn't. (He was happy. She wasn't.)

- to separate dependent clauses (clauses that are not sentences and that do not change the meaning of the sentence): Hugo, the tallest one there, changed the light bulb. / I was not sure, nor will I ever be, that driving up the mountain was a good idea.

- to add formal designations immediately after proper names: Martin Luther King, Jr. / Marcus Welby, M.D.

- to separate elements of dates and places: I learned more in Alberta, Canada, than I wanted to. / On Monday, June 3, 2011, the balloon woke the entire village.

 

[emsr2d2]

It's fine to start sentences with "But/And/Or" in BrE too. I just didn't like that particular usage.

 

[Tdol]

But few people know they are not as clean as they seem.

I don't know whether clean is the best adjective here- they are clean, but may have dangerous chemicals, which would make them hazardous rather than dirty to me.

 

[Tdol]

In AmE,"get moldy" would be more common.

Go mouldy works in BrE. ;-)

 

[Tdol]

Yup. And at least in American, it's fine to start a sentence with But, Or, or And.

There are some who object in many parts of the world, but people do start sentences with these everywhere. Avoiding it in formal writing is a good idea, but it's fine in other contexts.