A burglar managed to climb a downspout

[Bassim]

I am wondering if my sentences sound natural. Would you please correct my mistakes?

The burglar managed to climb a downspout to the roof. He opened the skylight and through the loft entered the house, where he stole the expensive collection of rare watches. He then slunk out of the house through the back door without being seen by none.

 

[teechar]

and through the loft entered the house,

Swap those around.

without being seen by none.

Do you see the double negative? ;-)

 

[Bassim]

teechar,

Thank you for your corrections. I have to tell you I felt that "none" was wrong, but I noticed that first after I posted my sentence. I believe I should have written "anyone."
I am wondering if my sentences, after your corrections, would be correct like this:

The burglar manged to climb a downspout to the roof. He opened the skylight and entered the house through the loft. He stole the expensive collection of rare watches, and slunk out of the house through the back door without being seen by anyone.

 

[Bassim]

teechar,

Excuse me for asking again.

I am wondering if there is any grammatical explanation why "entered the house" should be before "through the loft".

 

[teechar]

Yes, there is. Adverbials of manner usually go at the end of a sentence. Take a look at the link below.
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/gra...d-adverbs/adverbs-and-adverb-phrases-position

Alternatively, you could set it off with two commas:
He opened the skylight and, through the loft, entered the house.

 

[Bassim]

RobertJ

I used "without being seen by none", but it should be "without being seen by anyone." It is the double negative as teechar explained in his post.

 

[Bassim]

RobertJ,

It's OK. I honestly believed you were asking about the mistake I had made in my sentence. I believed you missed the double negative.

 

[teechar]

A trivial question, but what's wrong with:

"-------------without being seen?"

Are you asking why I underlined "without", RobertJ?

 

[andrewg927]

No, No, teechar. Perhaps I assumed wrongly that my post would be understood.

I meant: What's wrong with just terminating the sentence after the word "seen"? "He left without being seen". That should be sufficient.

That's what I thought of when I saw your post. You put the question mark behind the quote "..without being seen."? but I didn't want to make an assumption if that wasn't what you meant.

 

[teechar]

That's what I thought of when I saw your post. You put the question mark behind the quote "..without being seen."? but I didn't want to make an assumption if that wasn't what you meant.

Did you notice the full stop (period) there too?

 

[teechar]

Both.

 

[andrewg927]

Did you notice the full stop (period) there too?

Yeah, I saw the period before the question mark.