# a front half was missing a rear half



## dichelson

Hello: I have the following sentence: 

"An old pickup truck sat in two halves -- the rear half was now a towable trailer. The front half was... well, a front half was missing a rear half and a future."

Why do you think the author chose to say "a front half" instead of "the front half"? Thank you


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## majlo

Honestly, I've no idea. I'd use 'the' here since we know which 'front half' specifically is being talked about. I can't wait till some native speakers take the floor.


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## purgolders_90

It was worthless and not going any where.  that's my guess.


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## dichelson

purgolders_90 said:


> It was worthless and not going any where. that's my guess.


 Yes, I know, but still I can't understand why he doesn't say "the front half"


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## Matching Mole

dichelson said:


> Hello: I have the following sentence:
> 
> "An old pickup truck sat in two halves -- the rear half was now a towable trailer. The front half was... well, *the* front half was missing a rear half and a future."
> 
> Why do you think the author chose to say "a front half" instead of "the front half"? Thank you


Do you mean where I have changed it in red above? There is no reason, it appears to be a mistake. It should be "the" because he is reiterating  the unfinished "The front half was..." for dramatic emphasis.


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## elroy

The first part of the sentence does use "the," referring to the specific front half being described.

"A" appears in the description of the front half.  Instead of following "was" with an adjective, the author pauses, and then uses a sentence starting with "well," telling us that _a front half somewhere out there _was missing a rear half and a future.  Given the prior context, it is clear which "front half" is being referred to.


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## dougelly

I also think there's a mistake, but I see a different one from Matching Mole's:

"An old pickup truck sat in two halves -- the rear half was now a towable trailer. The front half was... well, a front half was missing a rear half and a future."


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## Matching Mole

elroy said:


> The first part of the sentence does use "the," referring to the specific front half being described.
> 
> "A" appears in the description of the front half.  Instead of following "was" with an adjective, the author pauses, and then uses a sentence starting with "well," telling us that _a front half somewhere out there _was missing a rear half and a future.  Given the prior context, it is clear which "front half" is being referred to.


But he's not talking about "a front half somewhere out there", he's talking about the front half that is sat here. It is the rear half that it is now missing which is "a rear half somewhere out there", and the writer correctly uses "a" for it.


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## Matching Mole

dougelly said:


> I also think there's a mistake, but I see a different one from Matching Mole's:
> 
> "An old pickup truck sat in two halves -- the rear half was now a towable trailer. The front half was... well, a front half was missing a rear half and a future."


That's possible too! Either solution makes sense, but which did the writer intend? I'm sure it is wrong as it stands.


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## elroy

I thought it was a sort of stylistic device: a general statement referring to a particular object.  I don't know if that makes any sense.  I may have been giving the author too much credit, and it could just be a mistake as you said.


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## purgolders_90

Yeah.  With the pause,  I felt that the writer was being "poetic" or "stylistic" as elroy said.


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## Thomas Tompion

I feel we are making a meal of this, and that I may be about to add a fifth course. I'd say:

1. There is just one mistake, the one pointed out by Dougelly in post 7. We need to add a which, or dump the was. Let's dump the was in the interests of economy. 
2. The front half was... well, a front half missing a rear half and a future. is fine, actually rather good. 

What's the answer to dichelson's question?

a. If the was stands, we have to change the sentence to 'The front half was... well,* the* front half was....' 
b. If we dump the was the sentence bursts into flower for me, and matches the liveliness and humour of the opening sentence. I'm confident that this is what the writer intended.

The man was a man with nowhere to go.
The sky was a sky in which no stars were shining.
The doctor was a doctor who had left his stethescope at home.

It's quite a common rhetorical device in English writing, and is very apposite here, which is why I'm with Dougelly about this.


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## Matching Mole

I'll buy that for a dollar. "The front half was a front half missing a rear half."

Or to put it into question and answer format:
How would you describe the front half?
It was a front half missing a rear half.


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## dichelson

Thank you all. I would like to hear from American people too, to see if they recognize any kind of American usage, or they also think it's a mistake.


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## Cathy Rose

I concur with everyone else here, Dichelson.  There appears to be an error -- probably a simple typo -- at work here.  It happens, even in the best of books.


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## purgolders_90

sometimes in america we write stuff that is not grammatically correct, but it is meant to be "catchy".

Now I want to know where it came from.  I am interested.


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## dichelson

It comes from a novel by Frank Peretti. Its title is "The Oath".


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## gaer

dichelson said:


> Thank you all. I would like to hear from American people too, to see if they recognize any kind of American usage, or they also think it's a mistake.


I agree with all the others. Either change "a" to "the" or drop "was". And I prefer dropping "was".

This is not an AE/BE matter. The phrase, as you've presented it, sound wrong to all of us, or at least to most of us. Minor mistakes like this are not at all uncommon in books, especially paper-backs that have been written recently.

Gaer


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## Cagey

I agree that it is hard to construe this sentence as it is, and the other suggestions seem plausible.  Here is one more. 



> "An old pickup truck sat in two halves -- the rear half was now a towable trailer. The front half was... well, a front half that was missing a rear half and a future."


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## gaer

Cagey said:


> I agree that it is hard to construe this sentence as it is, and the other suggestions seem plausible. Here is one more.


Interesting. I never thought of adding a word. That also works!


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## giggy

Hello,

The author is right and you guys are missing the point the author is making.
Some people here are getting it but not quite at the point.

The author changed his/her mind, right after first saying, "the front half was...," and decided to generalize a portion of life by utilizing "a," instead of "the."
Take a careful look why the author used the words at the end, "a furure."

The front half and the rear half were both separated, by which both cannot function as were intended. We all know it by the previous sentence, "An old pickup truck sat in two halves -- the rear half was now a towable trailer."

When one is separated from the other which was part of the previous, the "whatever (one+the other)" has no future. It not only applies to the specific pickup truck but also to other trucks or other life of any form. One cannot be one with only "o," "n," or "e."

Again, the author wanted to generalize/humanize(?) the example by using "a."


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## Thomas Tompion

giggy said:


> What do you think about my interpretation on the subject?


You didn't say where you thought the error was, Giggy.  You can't think it's right as it stands.


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## giggy

Thomas Tompion said:


> You didn't say where you thought the error was, Giggy. You can't think it's right as it stands.


 
There is no error in the subject sentence.
I can think it's right because it stands as it does. 
It "is" right.

The author was very clear by his saying, "a front half...," that he/she is not talking about the specific pickup truck mentioned right before. 

The author is saying:

Whether it is "a" pickup truck, a truck, or a whatever, if half is missing, one has no future.

No error. The author was as clear and correct as a Tundra.


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## Thomas Tompion

Your saying it is right doesn't make it so.  We've said what we think is wrong.  Can you counter our objections?


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## giggy

Thomas Tompion said:


> I'd say:
> 
> 1. There is just one mistake, the one pointed out by Dougelly in post 7. We need to add a which, or dump the was. Let's dump the was in the interests of economy.
> 2. The front half was... well, a front half missing a rear half and a future. is fine, actually rather good.


 
The author was right and you are clearly wrong here.

1. You should get the part, the-author-was-right, by reading my previous post.

2. Now, where you are wrong: 

The number 2 you said above is not fine or good, but cruelly bad.
You cannot add a "which," or dump the "was," simply because if you do either, it won't be a stand-alone or a complete sentence, and thus it makes your #2 not a valid sentence or rather not a sentence entirely.

The author was and still is perfectly right.

What do you think?


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## Thomas Tompion

giggy said:


> [...]
> 
> What do you think?


I think you've not understood the function of the dots in the sentence.


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## out2lnch

I'm going to have to go against the grain here and agree with giggy. I think the author did this on purpose and I don't see anything wrong with it. I'm no grammar guru, so I admit there is possibility of grammatical infractions, but I like it the way it stands. It does seem like he was going to address the particular front half, but then back-tracked and made it more general.

An analogous situation would be: [man loses his arm in a rather vicious example of road rage] The arm was . . . well, an arm was in the ditch that would not be flipping any more birds.


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## Thomas Tompion

out2lnch said:


> [...]An analogous situation would be: [man loses his arm in a rather vicious example of road rage] The arm was . . . well, an arm was in the ditch that would not be flipping any more birds.


If he was going to write this, surely he would have not switched from the arm to an arm?

Also aren't you overlooking the parallelism with the previous sentence, the rear half was now a towable trailer?

I think this guy's a better writer than you give him credit for, out2inch.


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## out2lnch

I think sometimes people want to adhere too closely to what they view as being proper grammar, and maybe miss out on subtleties that were actually intended and not mistakes at all. 

The switch of 'the arm' to 'an arm' wouldn't work as well (to me) in my example, because, like I see the author doing, the point is that he was going to say what happend to the other arm/half, then interrrupts himself and addresses an arm/half in general. In other words, he starts off by explaining what happened to the particular arm/half, then backs up and gives a different take on the scene, where the arm/half is not _the_ arm/half that was being referred to.

Contrary to what you say, I think groggy and I are giving the author more credit that those of you who believe there is an error in the sentence. If we are indeed correct, then the nuance of what he's saying is lost to people trying to correct him.

I've amended my analogy, and I still see nothing wrong with it. I added a [there was] that I think could be added as well, but not necessarily so.

[context: a man loses his arm in a rather vicious example of road rage] "A man was standing in the middle of the road, missing an arm -- the body was now obliged to be left-handed. The right arm was... well, [there was] a right arm was in the ditch that would not be flipping any more birds."


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## elroy

What out2lnch is saying is what I was trying to say in my very first post.  But then other members started saying the sentence was wrong, so I decided to sit back and see how the discussion developed.  I'm pleased to see that although we're outnumbered, I'm not the only one who didn't automatically assume the sentence was incorrect.


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## panjandrum

The author may have deliberately said what has been quoted, in which case that is fine (as some have said and I'll give my interpretation in a moment).
But from what we have here it is not possible to say that what has been quoted, even if it is exactly what appears in the printed version of the book, is what the author intended.  There are several very fluent and very appropriate possibilities if we allow for a very minor error of some kind.

So, although I have a sneaking sympathy for the view expressed by giggy, I think it is going much too far to say "The author was right and you are clearly wrong here."

_An old pickup truck sat in two halves -- the rear half was now a towable trailer. The front half was... well, a front half was missing a rear half and a future._

<Interrupted by a daughter - I think I was only going to say what Elroy said back in post #6.>


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## LV4-26

You can add me to the list, elroy.

The way I read it, it's as if he was telling the story again, from a new perspective. Hence, the dots and the _well._
What I hear behind it is something like "well, I should perhaps tell it differently: this is in fact the story of a front half that was missing a real half and a future....."

Which, I suppose, is yet another way of saying what elroy and the others have said.


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## ireney

I think that, although the context given _"seemed" _sufficient at first, with the turn this conversation has taken, we should bother dichelson for some more.
You see, the way I read it, with what we have, it's clearly a case of an error (I will leave it to better minds than mine to decide which is the right version  ). I can see how this could be something else, something more subtle and more deep than most of us see in this phrase. Such a reading of the meaning though can only be valid (in my opinion obviously) if either the author does such U-turns often enough or if the metaphorical meaning is consistent with the way the character feels, thinks and, well, talks.


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## giggy

panjandrum said:


> So, although I have a sneaking sympathy for the view expressed by giggy, I think it is going much too far to say "The author was right and you are clearly wrong here."


 
Read this why I (anyone for that matter) can publically say that it is clearly and surely wrong if a sentence is not complete: 2. The front half was... well, a front half missing a rear half and a future.

I didn't say he was wrong. You can see I meant his suggested revision is wrong grammatically. Please, read the following one more time:

2. Now, where you are wrong: 

The number 2 you said above is not fine or good, but cruelly bad.
You cannot add a "which," or dump the "was," simply because if you do either, it won't be a stand-alone or a complete sentence, and thus it makes your #2 not a valid sentence or rather not a sentence entirely.


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## giggy

Thomas Tompion said:


> I think you've not understood the function of the dots in the sentence.


 
An incomplete sentence is an incomplete sentence.
Dots have no meaning here completing the following sentence. 

The following sentence should be a complete one just like the one the author made. Yours, however, has only a subject (a front half ) and modifiers (missing a rear half and a future) with no verb, thus making your own creative revision not a complete sentence.


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## elroy

Hi, giggy.  There is no reason for the part after "well" to be a complete sentence.  It could just be a continuation of the part before the dots.


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## bibliolept

Considering that the narrative--look at the "well" and the ellipsis"--seems be written to give a conversational or less formal tone, I think the author just made a choice based on aesthetics or euphoniousness. It sounds "folksier," more picturesque or colorful to my ear, matching the original "an old pickup truck" in the first sentence and the "a rear half" and "a future."


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## panjandrum

I don't think we can be certain that 
"The author was clearly right ..."
because we cannot be certain what the author wrote.

I don't agree with giggy's interpretation of what Thomas Tompion wrote, and clearly he doesn't either.  However, that is not the purpose of the thread.

As I said before, the original sentence reads OK to me if I take the right shift of perspective at the point in the sentence highlighted:
_The front half was ... well, a front half was missing a rear half and a future._

There are also, as others have suggested, several very acceptable alternatives that require a very minor change.


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## dichelson

Hello again. Frankly, I didn't think that such an example of bad writing would make waves like that. I don't think it's a typo, because there are no typos all over the book. And I see your point, Giggy & C. However, here comes my challenge: suggest a reason why saying "the front half was... well, a front half missing a rear half and a future", without the "was" after "front half", would've been worse than the way it is (badly) written. The subtlety would have been exactly the same. He probably wanted to show off that he's a good writer, so demonstrating just the opposite. Just my five cents.


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## Cathy Rose

This hurts: I think I was wrong in my original post when I said it was probably a typo.  Look at this construction:
"Her boyfriend broke up with her, and he was feeling free. She was ... well, a girl who was missing a boyfriend and a plan."  I can see why an author would choose to begin a sentence with a definite article and then continue with a generalization.  It makes sense.  However, there is no way to be sure unless we get the author himself to sort it out for us.


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## giggy

elroy said:


> Hi, giggy. There is no reason for the part after "well" to be a complete sentence. It could just be a continuation of the part before the dots.


 
Remember it doesn't continue. It has a period at the end of the sentence.

What I am saying is the author did not make any mistake and we know it by looking at his obvious intention to change the "the" to the "a."
So giving the author an alternative (revised) writing to the original (while assuming it is a bad writing) is not very polite and even so with an incomplete sentence.


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## dichelson

Cathy Rose said:


> This hurts: I think I was wrong in my original post when I said it was probably a typo. Look at this construction:
> "Her boyfriend broke up with her, and he was feeling free. She was ... well, a girl who was missing a boyfriend and a plan."


 
Cathy, if you want to have something similar to what unfortunately is written in my book, you shoud say ""Her boyfriend broke up with her, and he was feeling free. She was ... well, a girl was missing a boyfriend and a plan." This looks horrible to me. Your sentence is fine (at least, to my non-native ears). But why on earth did he wrote "the front half was... well, a front half was missing a rear half" instead of "the front half was... well, a front half missing a rear half"? Can anybody explain this? For now, I'm sick of that man!!


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## giggy

Cathy Rose said:


> This hurts: I think I was wrong in my original post when I said it was probably a typo. Look at this construction:
> "Her boyfriend broke up with her, and he was feeling free. She was ... well, a girl who was missing a boyfriend and a plan." I can see why an author would choose to begin a sentence with a definite article and then continue with a generalization. It makes sense. However, there is no way to be sure unless we get the author himself to sort it out for us.


 
I agree with you.

We will only be able to find out why the author finishes with a generalization after we read the article or the book.


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## Thomas Tompion

I'm surprised, amongst other things, that someone capable of the zeugma at the end, who has lined up the sequence from his previous sentence, could have made a hash like this of the end.  It looks to me like a case of bad editing.  Most writers have suffered from bad editing at some stage of their careers.


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## gaer

elroy said:


> Hi, giggy. There is no reason for the part after "well" to be a complete sentence. It could just be a continuation of the part before the dots.


Absolutely.

After reading all the comments, I do see how a case could be made for either making a correction or for leaving the sentence exactly as it is. For the record, I find the author's style extremely annoying, and I can easily understand why Dichelson found the wording strange.

We should also make it clear that TT's suggestion was absolutely _not_ grammatically wrong for the reasons given. 

Gaer


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## giggy

elroy said:


> Hi, giggy. There is no reason for the part after "well" to be a complete sentence. It could just be a continuation of the part before the dots.


 
The author didn't continue it. He/she revised it.

It is a continuation for TT though, who gives an alternative and creative writing to the original, which I find not acceptable, while not knowing the author's intention to changing articles in the first place.


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## ireney

As I see it, if it continues the first part ("the front part etc") there's some mistake. Whether we should remove the second "was" or add a "that/which" or anything else I cannot tell, obviously.
If it is a revision, a new sentence, then it has a general meaning that has no relation with the sentence referring to the back half. Apart from that, as a generalisation, it must have a metaphorical meaning. For that to be true there must be some connection we are unaware of with the rest of the novel. Some connection that makes clear why it is the _fron__t _part that has not future whereas, I suppose, a _back _half can sleep knowing there is a tomorrow.


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## gaer

giggy said:


> The author didn't continue it. He/she revised it.


Elroy's comment was not about the intention of the author but rather whether or not TT's suggestions are somehow incorrect, and I see no reason to view them as incorrect, grammatically, which seems to be what you are claiming is true.


> It is a continuation for TT though, who gives an alternative and creative writing to the original, which I find not acceptable, while not knowing the author's intention to changing articles in the first place.


What is "an alternative and creative writing"?

Do you mean "an alternative and creative version"?


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## giggy

gaer said:


> Elroy's comment was not about the intention of the author but rather whether or not TT's suggestions are somehow incorrect, and I see no reason to view them as incorrect, grammatically, which seems to be what you are claiming is true.


 
I agree. 
But, I was saying to Elroy what the author's intention is. The author didn't continue. He/she revised it.

I commented TT's suggestive "version" *after it*, which is correct in grammar if continued, which I, however, strongly disagree with TT on doubting (hence trying to rewriting) the author's ability to send his/her messege without knowing (reading enough of the subject book or article) what truly is the author's intention here.


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## dichelson

Well, I read the book in its entirety, and there is no further reference to this. I'm 100% sure there is nothing metaphorical about it. I think he simply wanted to generalize things, be more catchy, give it a little bit of irony. However, you guys seem to be stubbornly ignoring my question. If his intent was just this, *why do you think he said "the front half was... well, a front half WAS missing a rear part" with the WAS in between?* 

Why did he put the *WAS* there? Hope I finally get an answer! To me, the only explanation is he made a mistake. Anybody who thinks the sentence is fine as it is, please explain the *WAS*. Thanks.


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## GreenWhiteBlue

I think the most likely explanation is either 
1) The author did NOT put that _was_ there at all: it was slipped in by the typesetter and missed by a careless editor; 
OR
2) The _was_ had been placed there by the author, but the careless typesetter dropped another word (such as "that") which would have produced a  more intelligible sentence.

I agree with you, dichelson; the "was", all by itself, does not make sense, and I do not think it can be defended.


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## Forero

Personally, I am convinced someone other than the author (Microsoft Word? A typesetter?) added the _was_.  Are there any other editions of this work?  Does anyone have an original manuscript?

The rear half has a future as a towable trailer; the front half is just a rearless front half with no future.


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## giggy

dichelson said:


> I think he simply wanted to generalize things, be more catchy, give it a little bit of irony. However, you guys seem to be stubbornly ignoring my question. If his intent was just this, *why do you think he said "the front half was... well, a front half WAS missing a rear part" with the WAS in between?*
> 
> Why did he put the *WAS* there? Hope I finally get an answer! To me, the only explanation is he made a mistake. Anybody who thinks the sentence is fine as it is, please explain the *WAS*. Thanks.


 
You answered your own question in the first part of what you said above.
He put the "was" there because he, and I quote, "...wanted to generalize things, be more catchy, give it a little bit of irony."


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## GreenWhiteBlue

giggy said:


> He put the "was" there because (_etc_.)


Giggy, how do you know that it was indeed the author who put the _was_ there, let alone how you know why he did it?


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## giggy

GreenWhiteBlue said:


> Giggy, how do you know that it was indeed the author who put the _was_ there, let alone how you know why he did it?


 
There are more than five hundred and fifty reasons why it was indeed the author who put the _was_ there. For the "let-alone-how..." part, please, kindly read what I have posted so far here.


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## GreenWhiteBlue

giggy said:


> There are more than five hundred and fifty reasons why it was indeed the author who put the _was_ there.


 
How fortunate for you that you can give so many reasons. Nevertheless, I will be happy with just one.

So do tell us: how _do _you know -- and that is "know", not "assume" or "guess" -- that this was the author's intentional doing, and not just an error on the part of the typesetter?


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## giggy

GreenWhiteBlue said:


> How fortunate for you that you can give so many reasons. Nevertheless, I will be happy with just one.
> 
> So do tell us: how _do _you know -- and that is "know", not "assume" or "guess" -- that this was the author's intentional doing, and not just an error on the part of the typesetter?


 
My dear friend (I hope), it is "obvious," (just like having hundreds of reasons) that the author intended, simply by reading what is there.

We all only have to assume/guess/interpret/wild-imagine/dream/think/sleep on what is there. That's what we readers do. 
We don't assume a typo because if we start doing it, we will be busy trying to find what's not a typo.  We do not mathmatically precisely dare to hope to know what the author wanted to tell from the controvertial sentence. It's impossible. And it's even more impossible and complicated when our lives all differ from each other.

I gave you what the author's intention was over and over again in the previous posts of mine and refer to them if you really want to know my "guess."


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## JamesM

_Moderator's note: This thread is now closed.  The tone of this exchange has moved completely outside the accepted bounds of WRF and the content and tone are so intertwiined as to make it impossible to separate the two._

_Please remember that one of the guidelines of this forum to maintain a professional and courteous tone with other board members..  _


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