Michael was heavy drinker

[Bassim]

I am wondering if my sentences are grammatically correct.

Michael was heavy drinker. Once he fell into delirium tremens and set fire to his house. He danced and sang in his garden, to the horror to his neighbours who watched his property consumed quickly by flames.

 

[teechar]

Michael was heavy drinker.

Fix that.

Once he fell into delirium tremens

Rephrase that.

He danced and sang in his garden, to the horror to his neighbours who watched his property being consumed quickly by the flames.

 

[Bassim]

I will write my sentence again.

Michael was a heavy drinker. He once fell into delirium tremens and set fire to his house. He danced and sang in his garden, to the horror to his neighbours who watched his property being consumed quickly by the flames.

 

[teechar]

Try "had an attack of delirium tremens" instead.

 

[Bassim]

teechar,

I am just wondering is it correct to have adverb "once" at the beginning of my sentence.

1. Once he had an attack of delirium tremens.

Is it grammatically correct to put it behind "he" like this?
He once had an attack of deliriium tremens.

 

[teechar]

teechar,

I am just wondering if it's [STRIKE]is it[/STRIKE] correct to have the adverb "once" at the beginning of my sentence.

Is it grammatically correct to put it [STRIKE]behind[/STRIKE] before "he" like this?

1. Once he had an attack of delirium tremens.

A little comma would go a long way in making that sentence work. ;-)

He once had an attack of delirium tremens.

That one is okay.

 

[Skrej]

'Delirium tremens' sounds very clinical, and thus a bit unnatural in this context to me. I'd see about using some lay terms, although off the top of my head I can't think of one term for the hallucinations. The minor tremors are more commonly referred to as 'the shakes', at least in AmE.

Google claims AmE slang for the condition is "D.T's", although that's a new one for me.

 

[andrewg927]

Use "alcohol withdrawal syndrome". It may not be the exact same but people will have an easier time reading your passage.

 

[Bassim]

Honestly, I don't think "delirium tremens" sounds clinical, strange or unnatural in my sentence. It is a well-known term. In BrE it is "DTs"; in AmE D.T.'s. Michael sets fire to his house because of the state of his mind.

 

[Skrej]

I actually had to Google the term, so I question how well-known it is. I've never heard the acronym, either.

 

[andrewg927]

Known among physicians or addiction therapists perhaps but I'm not sure. Certainly unknown to most people. It's Latin and we don't use a lot of Latin words in English.

 

[Bassim]

I heard about "delirium tremens" when I was in secondary school. I must have been fourteen or fifteen years old. It was in Yugoslavia in the 1980s. We had proper education and the discipline was strong. Our teachers could dedicate their time to teaching us, and not like today when teachers have to struggle to impose discipline. I remember that we had some students who had gone to school in Germany because their parents went there to work. Those students could not compete with us, because their knowledge was lower than ours.
I cannot talk about the US, but I know that "delirium tremens" is a well-known term in Europe. There is nothing strange or special with it. It has been used for decades, not only among specialists but also among other educated people.

 

[GoesStation]

The DTs used to be a common term in American English. I think it's gone out of fashion.

 

[andrewg927]

I will leave it to our European friends to make a comment. It's not strange at all that there are a lot of words the Europeans know that we don't know.

 

[probus]

Michsel was a fronket

 

[Rover_KE]

Michsel was a fronket

 

[bubbha]

In American English, we precede "DTs" with "the": "the DTs".

"DTs" is pronounced "dee-teez".

 

[emsr2d2]

"The DTs" is used commonly in BrE to refer to an alcoholic's shaking hands when going through withdrawal (temporary or otherwise) but I would put money on the fact that a lot of the people who use it can't actually tell you what the Latin phrase is.

 

[Tdol]

Google claims AmE slang for the condition is "D.T's", although that's a new one for me.

It's not new in the UK. We also have ducks and drakes as rhyming slang for the shakes.

 

[andrewg927]

I would put money on the fact that a lot of the people who use it can't actually tell you what the Latin phrase is.

How many people know what "i.e." stands for? It's not uncommon for people to not know the Latin phrases behind the acronyms.