Activities you thought were interesting and fun to do might be quite boring after all.

Question

Supposedly something in this sentence is incorrect. But I have no idea whatsoever. Could anyone help me out here please? Perhaps something with might? Should it be replaced with can?

Activities you thought were interesting and fun to do might be quite boring after all.

Is this sentence a cleft sentence? I've read several threads on the subject, but still I'm in need of a rule of thumb for it. How can you recognize one instantly?

Thank you

Dokterjokkebrok

Ferdis · Accepted Answer

My first guess is that it should be 'may'.

Dokterjokkebrok · Answer

ferdisMy first guess is that it should be 'may'.

But wouldn't that only make a difference in modality?

Ferdis · Answer

Hmm yeah, that's probably not it then.

(I'm just guessing as an exercise; I don't see anything wrong.)

Could it be:

- Activities that ...

- ... you thought to be ...

- an issue with parallelism for the first 'and'

Kooyeen · Answer

Without a context, I can't say I see anything wrong with that sentence.
But on second thought, the more I think of a context, the more I realize there might be an article missing.

The activities you thought were interesting and fun to do might be quite boring after all.

Without the article, I can more easily imagine something like:

Activities you think are interesting and fun to do might be quite boring after all.

or

(Often) Activities you thought were interesting and fun to do turn out to be quite boring after all.

That's my opinion.

Ferdis · Answer

So, did you ever find out what exactly was wrong with this sentence?

Dokterjokkebrok · Answer

Yes. As a matter of fact, I did so half an hour ago. My teacher gave me this as a practice sentence. But I accidentally copied it incorrectly. So the sentence was actually correct.

The real and incorrect sentence was:

Activities, you thought were interesting and fun to do, might be quite boring after all.

So, perhaps you can give me your opinions on this one? If you like.

Thanks for all the previous advice of you guys.

Jordy

Ferdis · Answer

The clause is restrictive so the commas are not correct. Activities are not quite boring, and you do not find all activities interesting and fun to do. Also, if it were not a restrictive clause, it would be better to add 'which' in front.

Dokterjokkebrok · Answer

Thanks! I actually knew that already. But now I can recommend your comment as an answer.

Kind regards

Jordy

Activities you thought were interesting and fun to do might be quite boring after all.

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