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MrPernickety Posted 17 years ago
Vocabulary

Use of the word "leave"

Hi, 

Could you advise me if the following sentence sounds normal:

The five minutes walk around the block left him exhausted and he had sweat through his shirt

More importantly, I'm not certain about the two parts I highlighted.

Thanks in advance !

Regards, Alex.
  

Top answer

Here is the way I would say this: The five-minute walk around the block l eft him exhausted a nd his shirt soaked through with sweat.

  • Here is the way I would say this: The five-minute walk around the block l eft him exhausted a nd his shirt soaked through with sweat.
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5 Answers
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Here is the way I would say this:

The five-minute walk around the block left him exhausted and his shirt soaked through with sweat.
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MrPernicketyleft him exhausted
resulted in his being exhausted (extremely tired)
MrPernicketyhad sweat through
had perspired until the perspiration came through to the surface of

CJ
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Hi,

The five minutes walk around the block left him exhausted and he had sweat through his shirt

I just want to comment on the last part.
he had sweat through his shirt If 'sweat' is intended as a noun here, the sentence is not idiomatic.

However, I think the writer here is trying to use 'sweat' as a verb,i n Past
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www.m-w.com accepts both sweat and sweated as inflected forms (and this very editor that I'm using to write this post does not accept sweatedas correct!!!
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Hi CJ,
It's probably an AmE/BrE thing.

There was a similar debate in another thread about pet vs. petted..
I note that 'pet' and 'sweat' rhyme. There must be something about this monosyllabic sound that makes Americans want to shorten it.. Or perhaps it's just the influence of verbs like 'bet' and wet'.

Clive

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