"...almost met the sea..."

Question

And here's another sentence:«Forbidding rocks almost met the sea in the south.»Does it make sence? I want to convey that there's a "corridor" between the rocks and the water line.Anton

Skrej · Accepted Answer

Hi Ant,

Your sentence does make sense, and it does convey an image well.

However, to me, I don't get a sense of a 'corridor'. There's definitely a sense of space between the rocks and the sea, but I don't visualize a 'corridor'.

To me a corridor is a narrow path surrounded by high walls on both sides. If there's a body of water on one side (thus, a flat open area) I have trouble visualizing a corridor.

I picture an area of large jagged rocks on one side, with some sort of open space (beach perhaps?) between the last of the rocks and the water.

<edit> I just realized we may be having different definitions of corridor. A corridor can mean a narrow strip of land or passageway, which I think maybe is what you mean by corridor.

However, my comments about the image I get still stand.

Ant_222 · Answer

Thanks for the reply, Skrej.

By corridor I meant a passage somehow limited on both sides, be it rocks or water. I know what you mean by saying you don't see it as a corridor. Thanks.

Skrej · Answer

No problem.

In that case, I'd say your sentence does achieve its desired imagery. I definitely got the sense that there was some space between the rocks and the water.

I perhaps got too hung up in your definition of corridor, which wasn't the real issue of your question. My bad.

Ant_222 · Answer

Hi again, Skrej.

"I perhaps got too hung up in your definition of corridor, which wasn't the real issue of your question. My bad."

No, not bad at all, for it helps me improve my English and the skill of expressing myself in general.

...While reading your reply another possible problem crossed my mind. It conscerns the geographical aspect.

The situation I am trying to describe with only one short sentence is the following. The coast line stretches from east to west, and so does the rock ridge. The sea is to the south of the corridor and the rocks are to the north of it. I need this all expressed in my little sentence. Could you help me?

I am afraid my original sentece implies the whole "corridor" (I'll quote it) is to the south, which is not what I want it to mean... So here's another try:

"From the south, forbidding rocks came almost to the sea." — doesn't sound well even to me, the author...

Or, maybe, try something totally different, like: "A narrow stripe of sand was the only way between the steep rocks in the north and the sea in the south"?

What do you think?

Skrej · Answer

Ant_222Hi again, Skrej.

"I perhaps got too hung up in your definition of corridor, which wasn't the real issue of your question. My bad."

No, not bad at all, for it helps me improve my English and the skill of expressing myself in general.

...While reading your reply another possible problem crossed my mind. It conscerns the geographical aspect.

The situation I am trying to describe with only one short sentence is the following. The coast line stretches from east to west, and so does the rock ridge. The sea is to the south of the corridor and the rocks are to the north of it. I need this all expressed in my little sentence. Could you help me?

I am afraid my original sentece implies the whole "corridor" (I'll quote it) is to the south, which is not what I want it to mean... So here's another try:

"From the south, forbidding rocks came almost to the sea." — doesn't sound well even to me, the author...

Yes, this sentence sounds like the rocks are coming from the south, approaching the sea to the north, the opposite of what you describe above

Or, maybe, try something totally different, like: "A narrow stripe of sand was the only way between the steep rocks in the north and the sea in the south"?

What do you think?

If I understand you, the order of the geographical features, from top to bottom, (with top representing north, the bottom representing south) is:

Rocks
Space(beach or whatever)
Sea

You wish to say that this order continues along the entire coast line, which runs east to west.

You could say something like:

"The coastline, running east to west, is a forbidding rock ridge on the northern edge, which doesn't quite reach the southern sea."
"The coastline, a forbidding rock ridge on the northern side, doesn't quite reach the southern sea while it runs east to west."
"The northern coastline is a forbidding rock ridge not quite reaching to the southern sea, forming a coastline running east and west."
"The coastline bordered by the sea to the south, runs east and west along a forbidding rock ridge reaching almost to the water's edge."

All sorts of variations are available. If you've indicated the coast runs east to west, then you don't really even have to use both north and south in your description. For example, if you just use one directional, (the southern sea, the sea to the south), it's pretty clear that the rocks are to the north. Vice versa if you talk about something on the North. However, that's more of a stylistic choice for you the writer to make.

All those descriptions focus on describing the geography of the area, without putting much emphasis on the strip/corridor/beach. They give the idea that there must be some space there, since the rocks don't reach all the way to the water.

However, if your intent is to draw the readers attention to that corridor/strip/beach, then you'd need to re-write the sentences. If that's your intent (i.e. the actual corridor is more important that focusing on the overall geography), let me know and I'll throw out some samples that focus more on the corridor.

I guess it's a question of which is more important, a general description, or a focused detail? Are you just trying to give a quick description of the area, or are you writing about something important that's going to happen in that corridor/strip/beach area?

Ant_222 · Answer

Well it seems I should delineate in a couple of words where this sentence is from. It is Star Heritage, an old text adventure for the ZX Pentagon computer (a Soviet clone of ZX Spectrum with a disk operating system, TR-DOS, that allowed for games larger than the RAM (48-128 kb), and this game occupies a whole 720 Kb floppy disk).

The player enters commands and the game responds with a picture and a textual description of the command's result (in case of the "look around" command you get a desctiption of what you can see from where you are standing).

The game is being translated by hex-editing the binary, so the size of each description is limited by that of the original Russian text, and although English on average is more "concise" than Russian, sometimes this constraint does create troubles.

As to your question, I think it's scope is more general, not focused on this path between rocks and sea. And since you said my original sentence works well for this situation (although I confused north and south), I think I'll stick with it!

Thanks for help!

"...almost met the sea..."

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