Grammar & Writing Style

Question

I've been told to avoid 'loose' with phrases such as the following. Is it just a weak prepositional phrase perhaps?

1) How should I recast it?

Some of the traditions have been lost, with people now mocking the event and activities performed.

I don't really want to have a causal relationship...

2) Also, is the present perfect here used to show that the traditions being lost still affects the present?

Thanks for your input.

Avangi · Accepted Answer

English 1b3I've been told to avoid 'loose' with phrases such as the following. .

Are you speaking of the verb, "to lose"?

There's clearly no causal relationship in the blue sentence. (You knew that.)

Your suggestion about the tense seems like a good bet in this particular case.

Which "phrases" are you referring to?

Your wish is to "recast" the sentence without using the verb "to lose"?

English 1b3 · Answer

Sorry, I didn't make myself clear: I mean the phrase beginning with 'with.'

Avangi · Answer

I can't seem to get the point of avoiding "lost."

English 1b3 · Answer

AvangiI can't seem to get the point of avoiding "lost."

Not avoiding lost.

'loose' as in a loose sentence, loosely put together.

A loose sentence that begins with 'with' is how the first line in my first post should read. Sorry for the ambiguity. I needed a comma before 'with' perhaps.

Avangi · Answer

Sorry, English. I should have stayed in my own neighborhood. I've never heard of a loose sentence, but I guess most anything can be loose, when you think about it.
Was the criticism offered specifically with respect to the subject sentence?

In the one English Comp course I took, the professor had a thing for "dead wood." We spent a whole semester cutting the dead wood out of each other's compositions. I suppose some of it was loose.

(That's why I asked about it in my first post, thinking it had to be a typo.)
Maybe, "I've been told to avoid looseness."

Cheers.

English 1b3 · Answer

AvangiWas the criticism offered specifically with respect to the subject sentence?

Hi, Avangi

No, the comment (from Mr Wordy, to be precise) was actually concerning a different sentence, but it was more or less the same. I think he was referring to thsi type of construction: 'with + object + ing/ed participial.'

He may have not used the term 'loose.' I'm sorry I ever used it. It's seems it has just confused things. But 'loose' sort of seems like the right description to me... I suppose I basically want to know what you think about the sentence, and more importantly the aforementioned construction.

Cheers

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