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Dni483 Posted 12 years ago
Grammar

Hi

Are there any mistakes in this sentence?

I used to have a cat that usually was scratching my family's bare feet and all of us had scratches, so we decided to throw the cat out and get a new one.

Thank you
  

Top answer

I used to have a cat that would usually scratch my family's bare feet and all of us had scratches, so we decided to throw the cat out and get a new one. "usually was scratching my family's bare feet" suggests it was doing it all the time; but it couldn't have been unless you spend all day in bare feet. 'would' makes it conditional on your having bare feet.

— Meteorquake

  • I used to have a cat that would usually scratch my family's bare feet and all of us had scratches, so we decided to throw the cat out and get a new one.
  • "usually was scratching my family's bare feet" suggests it was doing it all the time; but it couldn't have been unless you spend all day in bare feet.
  • 'would' makes it conditional on your having bare feet.
  • "throw the cat out" is a term we wouldn't use, as it implies throwing it out on the street or in the bin like a piece of rubbish; unless that's what you meant, it's best to say something like "so we decided to replace the cat" or maybe simply "get a new one".
  • d
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2 Answers
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I used to have a cat that would usually scratch my family's bare feet and all of us had scratches, so we decided to throw the cat out and get a new one.

"usually was scratching my family's bare feet" suggests it was doing it all the time; but it couldn't have been unless you spend all day in bare feet. 'would' makes it conditional on your having bare feet.
"throw the cat
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Thank you and yeah I meant that we had let her free Emotion: smile
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