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Anonymous Posted 15 years ago
Grammar

Grammatical Idiosyncrasies

How is this issue to be perfected/resolved: "I just gave up blushing and twitching for ten minutes until I left the room." (This was an event related. The switch for past to present is because the blushing and twitching happened as a result of the giving up - or something that happened past the giving up, as a continued manifestation of it. Is this understanding erroneous?) I wrote it as "I just gave up, blushing and twitching for ten minutes until I left the room."

Now if it was "I just gave up, blushing and twitching." there would definitely be a comma, because the blushing and twitching is modifying the giving up, correct?

But how is the above sentence punctuated? And why? I didn't give up until I left the room. I "blushing (blushed) and twitching (twitched) until I left the room".

Also: I have a tendency to use several adjectives, adverbs, or verbs one after the other. For example: The building collapsed crumbled." I normally put a comma between each description word. "The building collapsed, crumbled." I find your ideas to be silly, outrageous." Is this erroneous?
  

Top answer

I just gave up blushing and twitching for ten minutes until I left the room. The words blushing and twitching are nouns, direct objects of the phrasal verb give up . It means that you stopped this behavior for 10 minutes.

  • I just gave up blushing and twitching for ten minutes until I left the room.
  • The words blushing and twitching are nouns, direct objects of the phrasal verb give up .
  • It means that you stopped this behavior for 10 minutes.
  • Then you left the room.
  • If yo add the comma, it changes these nouns to be adjectives, modifying I .
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1 Answers
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I just gave up blushing and twitching for ten minutes until I left the room.

The words blushing and twitching are nouns, direct objects of the phrasal verb give up. It means that you stopped this behavior for 10 minutes. Then you left the room.

If yo add the comma, it changes these nouns to be adjectives, modifying I.
That is because we do not p

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