My grammar exercises

[Bassim]

Here are a few sentences which popped up in my mind. Would you please correct my mistakes.

1. Peter's wife decided to hurt him the most and told everyone about his troubled past.
2. Although one of the wealthiest men in the world, he paid his workers a pittance.
3. The President strongly denied he had ever taken bribes or broken the law.
4. Cornfields spread before him, gently swaying like waves under the morning sun.
5. The streets were too narrow to accommodate the ecstatic masses that celebrated the victory of the national team.
6. Before my eyes stood the rubble of the old city, and I felt a wave of nostalgia washing over me.
7. She froze with fear as she heard rustling in the darkness, but soon she sighed with relief as she discerned a hedgehog creeping towards her.
8. The old woman looked in mirror, and suddenly, she felt as if her life was passing before her eyes like fast-forwarded film.
9. It was another hectic working day, and traffic had almost come to a stop.
10. He rushed to the kitchen, looked out the window, and panicked when he saw two dark-dressed men approaching his house.
11. His denials and delusions caught up with him when the police knocked at his door and demanded he follow them to the police station.

 

[emsr2d2]

Here are a few sentences which popped up in my mind. Would you please correct my mistakes.

1. Peter's wife decided to hurt him the most and told everyone about his troubled past. :tick: It's grammatically correct but I'm not sure about the logic. Did his wife's actions hurt him more than other people's actions? What does "the most" refer to?

2. Although one of the wealthiest men in the world, he paid his workers a pittance. :tick:

3. The President strongly denied he had ever taken bribes or broken the law. :tick:

4. Cornfields spread before him, gently swaying like waves under the morning sun.
Cornfields can't "spread" on their own. If you're talking about what he could see, then use "Cornfields were spread". "Like waves under the morning sun" is unusual. I don't associate any particular type of movement with "waves under the morning sun".

5. The streets were too narrow to accommodate the ecstatic masses that celebrated the victory of the national team. :tick:

6. Before my eyes stood the rubble of the old city, and I felt a wave of nostalgia washing over me. :tick: (although the comma isn't really necessary.)

7. She froze with fear as she heard rustling in the darkness, but soon she sighed with relief as she discerned a hedgehog creeping towards her.
"Discerned" is a little unnatural here. I would say "... she sighed when she realised it was just a hedgehog ...".

8. The old woman looked in the mirror (no comma here) and suddenly (no comma here) [strike]she[/strike] felt as if her life was passing before her eyes like [strike]fast-forwarded[/strike] a film on fast forward.

9. It was another hectic working day, and traffic had almost come to a stop. The comma isn't necessary and I can't really see the logical link between the two halves of the sentence.

10. He rushed to the kitchen, looked out the window, and panicked when he saw two dark-dressed men approaching his house. :tick: (Some people might say you need to use "out of the window". In BrE, "to look out the window" is OK.

11. His denials and delusions caught up with him when the police knocked at his door and demanded he follow them to the police station. :tick: (In BrE, we would say the police knocked on his door.)

See above.

 

[Bassim]

emsr2d2,
Thank you for correcting my mistakes.
Regarding my first sentence I am wondering if I could rephrase it like this:
1. Peter's wife decided to cause him the greatest damage and told everyone about his troubled past.
Regarding my sentence number 4, I understand that I made a mistake. Maybe I could rephrase it like this: Cornfields were spread under the morning sun, gently swaying like waves.

 

[emsr2d2]

emsr2d2,
Thank you for correcting my mistakes.
Regarding my first sentence I am wondering if I could rephrase it like this:
1. Peter's wife decided to cause him the greatest damage and told everyone about his troubled past.
Regarding my sentence number 4, I understand that I made a mistake. Maybe I could rephrase it like this: Cornfields were spread under the morning sun, gently swaying like waves.

I still don't like the use of the superlative in sentence 1 without using any comparison. Perhaps she simply decided to "hurt him badly". I would probably reword the whole thing as "Peter's wife decided to hurt him badly by telling everyone about his troubled past."

Your new version of sentence 4 is better than the original but even though I suggested "Cornfields were spread", I'm having second thoughts about it. It also occurred to me that cornfields don't wave at all. Corn does. The sun doesn't cause things to wave. I would actually say something like "He could see acres of sunlit corn waving in the morning breeze".

 

[tedmc]

Correcting the gramer mistakes are equally important.

Correcting grammar mistakes is equally important.

 

[Tdol]

Correcting grammar mistakes is equally important.

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