a paper bag was blowing down

[diamondcutter]

The beach was full by the time they got there. ...

Soon Mac noticed something strange. There was an empty water bottle in the sand. Then, a paper bag was blowing down by the water. People had littered all over the beach!

(from a reading book by Teacher Created Materials Inc.)

I don’t quite understand this sentence: Then, a paper bag was blowing down by the water. Does it mean a paper bag was blown down by the wind near the water?

 

[GoesStation]

It's poorly worded but yes, you understand it correctly.

 

[Tdol]

The last sentence doesn't work for me at all.

 

[emsr2d2]

The last sentence doesn't work for me at all.

Ditto. I'm not keen on the penultimate sentence either!

 

[diamondcutter]

Thank you all for your replies.

The last sentence doesn't work for me at all.

Hi, Tdol.

I wonder if you mean the last sentence is too exaggerated.

I'd like to know how to improve the last two sentences in #1.

 

[Phaedrus]

I don’t quite understand this sentence: Then, a paper bag was blowing down by the water.

The sentence would be clearer if an adverb like "around" or "about" and/or an adverbial prepositional phrase like "in circles" were added after "blowing":

In the second variation below, I have repositioned the adverbial "down by the water" to show you that it doesn't relate specifically to "blowing."

Then, a paper bag was blowing around down by the water.
Then, down by the water, a paper bag was blowing around.

In the pertinent OED definition, there is such an adverb/adverbial in all but one of the examples. In the exception, the object blowing is a (stationary) banner.

blow (verb)

12 b. intransitive (for reflexive). To be driven or carried by the wind; to move before the wind. Same const. Also (U.S. colloquial), to move as if carried or impelled by the wind.

1842 Ld. Tennyson Goose xiii, in Poems (new ed.) I. 233 Her cap blew off, her gown blew up.
1842 Ld. Tennyson Day-dream in Poems (new ed.) II. 156 The hedge broke in, the banner blew.
1844 Knickerbocker 23 51 I was half awake..when Bob came in, blew about the room for a while, and cried out.
1868 S. Hale Lett. (1919) 42 She is a picturesque looking creature... Why she blows up and down the Nile year in and year out,.. I dunno.
1903 E. C. Waltz Pa Gladden 61 The kitchen door opened and the wind-tossed farmer fairly blew in.

 

[diamondcutter]

Thanks, Phaedrus.

I wonder if ‘down by the water’ means ‘far from him by the water’.

 

[GoesStation]

Thanks, Phaedrus.

I wonder if ‘down by the water’ means ‘far from him by the water’.

No. It probably means "near the water, which is below him".

This text is clumsily written. Forget about it.

 

[Phaedrus]

Does it mean a paper bag was blown down by the wind near the water?

The important point is that the sentence does not mean that, even though your interpretation was endorsed by moderators at the start.

Then, a paper bag was blowing down by the water.

The sentence isn't saying that the paper bag was blowing down. It is saying that the paper bag was blowing. Where? Down by the water.

"Down by the water" is a common expression, as is "down by the river." "Down" relates to "by the water," not to "blowing."

You are not seeing the phrasal verb "blow down," as in "The winds of the hurricane blew down the tree/blew the tree down."