The news about

Question

- The news about her fiance's company declaring bankrupt and the bank is going to distrain his three storey house is like a striking lightning going past her ears.

- Is this sentence grammatical and ok to say?

Thanks a lot to Teachers,

Namsteven

Avangi · Accepted Answer

namsteven- The news about her fiance's company declaring bankrupt and the bank is going to distrain his three storey house is like a striking lightning going past her ears.

It poses a few problems for me.
I'm unfamiliar with "distrain." I suppose I'll have to look it up.

Casually, we say, "He went bankrupt." But I believe it's more natural to say "the company filed/declared bankruptcy.

If you're going to keep this all in one sentence (which I wouldn't) you need to use parallel verbals:
The news about A X-ing and B Y-ing etc.

Re the predicate, I'd switch to past tense, assuming she heard the news in the past and reacted at that time.
I suppose you could say that the news is continuing to affect her in an unending series of lightning strikes, but that seems unnatural to me.
I'd say, "The news. . . . . . . was like a lightning strike going past her ear."
Of course lightning is unfortunately silent. It's the thunder which imposes on our ears.
Further, while the lightning travels (as does sound), we think of the thunder as being simultaneously everywhere, as the sound echoes and reverberates. You may want to rethink your simile.

Personally, I think I'd use a pair of "that" clauses:
The news that her fiance's company has declared bankruptcy, and that the bank is about to (distrain) his three storey house, was like a series of thunderclaps reverberating in her ears. Geez!
That way we avoid the parallel structure problem.

Markroe · Answer

I have never seen the word "distrain." I wonder whether you mean "repossess" or "foreclose."

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