[General] tumbling on the grass

[Silverobama]

Hi.

I went to the park today and there is a grass land. I saw a boy rolling down from the higher place to the lower place. I wonder if it's natural to describe this as "The boy is tumbling on the grass"?

 

[emsr2d2]

He's tumbling down a grassy hill.

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

Hi.

I went to the park today, and there was a lawn. I saw a boy rolling down from the top to the bottom. I wonder if it's natural to describe this as "The boy is tumbling on the grass"?

Yes. Or in the grass or on the lawn.

Or The boy is tumbling down the hill.

(Cross-post.)

 

[emsr2d2]

I used hill because lawns don't usually have a top and a bottom. If it's a lawn, I'd say he was rolling from one end to the other.

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

I used hill because lawns don't usually have a top and a bottom. If it's a lawn, I'd say he was rolling from one end to the other.

Fair enough. But you can definitely tumble down my lawn.

 

[Silverobama]

I don't think it's a lawn. It should be a hill.

 

[tedmc]

I saw a boy tumbling down the grassy slope.

 

[Tarheel]

I agree with Piscean. I like rolling better than tumbling.

 

[emsr2d2]

It depends what they were doing. If they were lying flat and rolling side over side down the hill, then "rolling" works. I thought they were somersaulting so I used "tumbling" in the same sense it's used in gymnastics and acrobatics.

 

[GoesStation]

Fair enough. But you can definitely tumble down my lawn.

Mine, too. Most of it anyway, and you do have to start at a high place.

 

[GoesStation]

View attachment 3585
I don't think it's a lawn. It should be a hill.

The highest part of my lawn is probably forty feet higher than the lowest — about twelve meters.

 

[emsr2d2]

I've always associated a lawn with a relatively flat, mown, rather formal area of well-kept grass. If I had a house with such a sloping area, I'd just call it "the [back] garden" or "the grass".

 

[GoesStation]

Many American homes have gigantic grassy areas around them. We call them "lawns", usually in the context of having to mow them, regardless of their layout.