help needed with this sentence

Question

i oftentimes find myself in ridiculous situations and other times have great difficulty remembering how i got into themhow would i rephrase this sentence using correct commas?

Elduende_ph · Accepted Answer

Okay Nicky:

Here you have a rather tricky situation and I'm not so sure if simply placing commas correctly is enough.

I think you have here a compound sentence with a subordinate clause.

The first part of your sentence goes: "I oftentimes find myself in ridiculous situations." That's already a sentence all by itself.

The second part of your sentence--connected to the first by the coordinating conjuction "and"--is a dependent clause.

I have two suggestions on how to rephrase the sentence.

1) You could say,

"Oftentimes I find myself in ridiculous situations, although sometimes I have great difficulty remembering how I got into them."

I placed "I" (the subject) closer to the verb, because I think it makes the sentence clearer, placing the doer of the action to the action being done.

I used "although" instead of "and" because first, "and" is usually used to coordinate between 2 INDEPENDENT clauses, instead of in this case, which is between an independent clause and a dependent one. Secondly, "although" goes with "sometimes" which qualifies or specifies that the difficulty in remembering, does not happen as often as the act of finding oneself in ridiculous situation, which happens "oftentimes."

2) You could also say,

"Oftentimes I find myself in ridiculous situations, and, sometimes, I have great difficulty remembering how I got into them."

This version seems to violate whatever rules I cited to support the first version! This second version uses "and." How would I justify this?

Well, using "and" would mean that the two parts of the sentence are both independent clauses. Which probably boils down to a question of whether the second part of the sentence is REALLY a dependent or subordinate clause. Hmmm.

And now that I'ver reached this point, I thought of a third way to revise the sentence.

3) "Oftentimes I find myself in ridiculous situation; sometimes, I have great difficulty remembering how I got into them."

I think the use of the semi-colon is also justified here.

To shorten this discussion, I'll say this: I think "Version 1" is the safest, most conservative revision you can make. I think treating the second part of your sentence as a dependent clause is the version that obeys the rules most.

However, I think that treating the second part of the sentence as though it is an independent clause also works, as Version 2 and Version 3 show. For me, all three versions work and are thus, acceptable. And while Versions 2 and 3 seem to take liberty with the rules, I think the inherent flexibility of the language allows this. After all, the meaning is clear in all 3 versions, although I must admit that as an editor, I would be partial to Version 3, simply because the resulting sentence uses the least number of words.

Finally, I don't think using "other times" in your original sentence is justified in following "Oftentimes". I think it's a matter of degree and nuance. You say "Oftentimes" to mean what happens "usually" or "most of the time" and you say "sometimes" to mean, well, some of the time. You say "other times" to mean something that happens less frequently that "sometimes."

However, if you do mean to use "other times" that is, something that happens even less frequently that "sometimes" then I think the sentence needs more revision than we both previously thought. ;-)

Nicky Couture · Answer

thanks for all of the suggestions. is it possible to just use: i oftentimes find myself in ridiculous situations, and other times, have great difficulty remembering how i got into them?

Elduende_ph · Answer

Hi again Nicky,

I suppose placing the commas the way you did here makes the sentence look okay, but I'm still bothered by the phrase "and other times" so I looked up the dictionary meanings of "other."

And I was suprised to find out that "other times" most likely does not refer to frequency but to number or quality. The phrase "other times" uses "other" as and adjective. And here are the dictionary meanings for that:

adj.

1. Being the remaining one of two or more: the other ear.
2. Being the remaining ones of several: His other books are still in storage.
3. Different from that or those implied or specified: Any other person would tell the truth.
4. Of a different character or quality: “a strange, other dimension... where his powers seemed to fail” (Lance Morrow).
5. Of a different time or era either future or past: other centuries; other generations.
6. Additional; extra: I have no other shoes.
7. Opposite or contrary; reverse: the other side.
8. Alternate; second: every other day.
9. Of the recent past: just the other day.

Elduende_ph · Answer

Elduende_phFinally, I don't think using "other times" in your original sentence is justified in following "Oftentimes". I think it's a matter of degree and nuance. You say "Oftentimes" to mean what happens "usually" or "most of the time" and you say "sometimes" to mean, well, some of the time. You say "other times" to mean something that happens less frequently that "sometimes."

Okay guys, sorry about my mistake.

It seems "other times" DOES NOT refer to FREQUENCY at all. Please read my other post.

Anonymous · Answer

0didn't you get all my mails??0-

BarbaraPA · Answer

0Hello Anonymous,02br
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00Next time, please start a new thread when you have a question, and don't append a new question to an existing thread.02br
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00 - Mail is generally not countable. 02br
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00 - "My mail" can create confusion as to whether you mean mail you received or mail you sent.02br
02br
00 - Also, please remember to start with a capital letter.02br
02br
01i00Didn't you get all the mail that I sent you?02i00 - this doesn't sound very natural, however. 01i00Did you not get all the mail I sent you?02i02br
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00Even so, how would that person know? If you sent it and they never got it, could they tell you had sent it?0-

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