Satisfaction, part one

[Bassim]

Please would you take a look at my text and correct the mistakes. This is not an assignment but my own thoughts written with the goal to train my written English.

Let us imagine you stand on the top of a high building, a hill, or some other vantage point, watching the city down below. It is a Monday morning and the streets are teeming with people and traffic. Everyone is rushing somewhere. Everyone has a destination and a goal he or she must reach in the shortest possible time. People are forming long queues for busses, trams, trains and the underground. Traffic is heavy and at the main junctions, it almost stands still. Somewhere in the distance, you can hear the wailing of the police cars and ambulances speeding to help those who have lost the battle with time, at least for the time being.

People are so pressured that they hardly look at the beautiful facades around them or hear the song and twitter of the birds in the trees and parks. It could be a nice, warm day, but weather conditions would not distract these stressed human beings. If they knock into each other, they mumble something unintelligible as an apology and run away even faster to make up for those precious two, three seconds. At least when they are walking on the pavement these hard-pressed people enjoy relative freedom of movement. They can step aside, turn around, hasten or slow their pace, or stop to take a stone out of their shoe. The worst is for those forced to use public transport. Tightly packed like animals shipped to slaughter, they had to endure the closeness of their bodies. They have no choice but to stand there and inhale each other’s body odour, smell each other’s sweat and clothes and avoid each other’s eyes. In the past, there existed no modern electronic gadgets that could alleviate their plight, but nowadays they can turn on their iPhones, iPods, eBook readers, laptops and other wonders of the 21th century and bury themselves into an endless stream of information, news, films and music. Sometimes they ask themselves why they have to travel in such overcrowded public transportation when the government spends billions on weapons, bureaucracy, parties and entertainment. However, it is never going to enter their minds to rebel. They will accept their fate in silence, just as their parents had done before them. Only occasionally, at weekends and under the influence of alcohol, they will show some signs of discontent, which will evaporate with a hangover and be forgotten until the next occasion.
TO BE CONTINUED

 

[tedmc]

[STRIKE]Let us[/STRIKE] Imagine you stand on the top of a [STRIKE]high[/STRIKE] tall building, a hill, or some other vantage point, watching the city down below. It is a Monday morning and the streets are teeming with people and traffic. Everyone is rushing somewhere. Everyone has a destination and a goal he or she must reach in the shortest possible time. People are forming long queues for bus[STRIKE]s[/STRIKE]es, trams, trains and the underground. Traffic is heavy and at the main junctions, it almost stands still. Somewhere in the distance, you can hear the wailing of the police cars and ambulances speeding to help those who have lost the battle with time, at least for the time being.

People are so pressured that they hardly look at the beautiful facades around them or hear the song and twitter of the birds in the trees and parks. It could be a nice, warm day, but weather conditions would not distract these stressed human beings. If they [STRIKE]knock[/STRIKE] bump into each other, they mumble something unintelligible as an apology and run away even faster to make up for those precious two, three seconds. At least when they are walking on the pavement, these hard-pressed people enjoy relative freedom of movement. They can step aside, turn around, hasten or slow their pace, or stop to take a stone out of their shoe. The worst is for those forced to use public transport. Tightly packed like animals shipped to be slaughtered, they had to endure the closeness of their bodies. They have no choice but to stand there and inhale each other’s body odour, smell each other’s sweat and clothes and avoid each other’s eyes. In the past, there existed no modern electronic gadgets that could alleviate their plight, but nowadays they can turn on their iPhones, iPods, eBook readers, laptops and other wonders of the 21th century and bury themselves into an endless stream of information, news, films and music. Sometimes they ask themselves why they have to travel in such overcrowded public transportation when the government spends billions on weapons, bureaucracy, parties and entertainment. However, it is never going to enter their minds to rebel. They will accept their fate in silence, just as their parents had done before them. Only occasionally, at weekends and under the influence of alcohol, they will show some signs of discontent, which will evaporate with a hangover and be forgotten until the next occasion.

 

[Bassim]

tedmc,

Thank you so much for helping me and correcting my text. I am just wondering why the word "let us" at the beginning of my text is not suitable. Is it because of grammatical or stylistic reasons?

 

[tedmc]

There is probably nothing wrong grammatically but it doesn't sound very logical.

Let us(many people) imagine that you (singular)...

I suggest doing away with the 'us and you' to avoid the doubt.