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AskAndAnswer Posted 13 years ago
Grammar

the aspiration

Can you say:

He lost all the aspiration to fight before the battle has even began.
  

Top answer

Use this sentence: He had lost all the aspiration to fight even before the battle began.

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  • Use this sentence: He had lost all the aspiration to fight even before the battle began.
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7 Answers
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Use this sentence:

He had lost all the aspiration to fight even before the battle began.
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How about this one:

...and losing all the aspiration, her gaze became morose.
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AskAndAnswer...and losing all the aspiration, her gaze became morose.
That is what grammarians call a "dangling modifier."
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...and losing all the aspiration, her gaze became morose.

I see, so changing "the" to "her" would work in this case. Correct?

...and losing all her aspiration, her gaze became morose.

But then the "her" sounds repetitive a bit.
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Her gaze did not lose all aspiration.
The problem is that the modifier (losing all aspiration) does not modify the subject (gaze).
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I should have had a more complete sentence to give. I mislead you I believe into thinking the subject is gaze.

The queen collapsed, and while losing all her aspiration, her gaze became morose.

Does that work?
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Yes, grammatically speaking, that converts the present participle (losing), to a gerund (object of the preposition "while").

Aspiration should be plural here. Usually these things don't come in ones, they come in multitudes.
It is different from the word "hope."
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