UniLang

I've never had a bagel.

I crossed the city and then a marshland unil I reached a morose outback. The curlicued finials of the temple where looming through the fog. The temple, a sanctum cordoned off from the rest of the world by gilt walls and battlements, was surrrounded by fields of ragweed, tarweed and sorrel in which blowsy sharecroppers and other pissants would work till dusk. The temple was the oddest building I had ever seen, so imposing and queerly designed.

No small number of these whaling seamen belong to the Azores, where the outward-bound Nantucket whalers frequently touch to augment their crews from the hardy peasants of those Rocky shores.
(Excerpted from Ch27, Moby Dick)

I wrote "pissant" but ok.

---

The nave of the temple was unfathomably long, the storiated clerestories were as tall as the eye could see. Everything was bedecked with a panoply of motley arabesques and millefleurs that augmented one's sense of ecstasy. In the apse, the swoony high priest was chanting lilting litanies to the Whippoorwill God. The entire scenery was mantled with ghastly darkness.

azhong wrote:May Siren bless him, Ishmael is leaving the land and getting to the sea again. It seems the properest solution that he drives off his spleen and regulates his circulation.

france-eesti wrote:I'm experiencing right now a brand new feeling right now, that had been away since for a long time... How What do you call it? Yeah! Laziness!

azhong wrote:I am never a man of laziness, my dear. My lungs, as you can see now, work endlessly, twenty-four hours a day, expanding and contracting. And my heart is also diligent; it works day after night--nope, no, non, nein, you guess wrong. I am not talking about that how it circulates my blood, sweetie. My heart never stops missing you, even for a single second of being absent-mindedness, day-dreaming. Whenever I see waves, clouds, or occasionally a seagull, I see nothing but your face, your eyes, but more than often your smile. You know I am a sailor; my life at sea is buoyant.

france-eesti wrote:A little less conversation, a little more action, was what I felt obliged to say to those two trainees who spent two hours chatting over a cold cup of coffee after lunch, but they didn't seem to think I was to be taken seriously.

I'm guessing that's what's missing.

azhong wrote:Well, was it because of my clumsy English? Anyway, I know I'm still a trainee in English learning, but by the by not at all in navigation. I am quite an experienced sailor; I can steer well on the waves with a pair of oars well during the waves, I can perform flamenco and tango on swing deck, and, not boasting, I can dialogue with dolphins and seagulls.

I don't recognize the term "swing deck", and I can't find it online.

azhong wrote:"Maybe 'to steer a pair of oars' is awkward and should be better replaced with 'to steer a boat with a pair of oars'."

That works.

azhong wrote:After muttering this in annoyance, his tears started to fall along down his cheeks. But soon the strong sea wind blew them dry.

Osias wrote:I once read a parody of Marvel's Thor parody only with Egyptian instead of Nordic mythology that and a character had to steer the Solar System.

There are other ways of correcting this sentence. The main thing is you can't have "mythology that [something]".

azhong wrote:There was only one guesthouse in this small town, with only one room still available. And that's how I got acquainted with Ben. Moonlight flew shone/shined in through the window when as we started our polite, social chat, and I didn't expect this occasional talk, with a casual beginning, would change my life from then on.

france-eesti wrote:Don't be mistaken - Jannipäev, an Estonian celebration, is about bonfires and not campfires - don't go telling Estonians they have to jump over the bonfire, you'll be making yourself enemies.

"Bonfire" and "campfire" aren't normally uncountable, probably since they tend to be discrete things.

azhong wrote:On 23 August 1989, approximately two million of Estonians, Latvians, and Lithuanians joined their hands across their homelands to form a human chain which spanned more than six hundred kilometers. It was a peaceful political demonstration and was called the Baltic Chain or Chain of Freedom. (Adapted from wikipedia)

tiuwiu wrote:The average life span of a mouse is shorter than a turtle's.

Or "is shorter than that of a turtle".

_____

Synalepha wrote:With perfunctory derring-do, I ventured outside without an umbrella. The pluvious gales were ululating against my whey face. I tried to plough through the inundated byway that petered into the city, but suddenly, like a schlemiel, I fell into a pond that I hadn't realized was there. Two kids looking at me through the sash window of their house, cachinnated in a way that sounded almost like a threnody.

Synalepha wrote:I crossed the city and then a marshland unil I reached a morose outback. The curlicued finials of the temple where looming through the fog. The temple, a sanctum cordoned off from the rest of the world by gilt walls and battlements, was surrrounded by fields of ragweed, tarweed and sorrel in which blowsy sharecroppers and other pissants would work till dusk. The temple was the oddest building I had ever seen, so imposing and queerly designed.

Synalepha wrote:The nave of the temple was unfathomably long, the storiated clerestories were as tall as the eye could see. Everything was bedecked with a panoply of motley arabesques and millefleurs that augmented one's sense of ecstasy. In the apse, the swoony high priest was chanting lilting litanies to the Whippoorwill God. The entire scenery was mantled with ghastly darkness.

There comes a point where prose is too flowery to correct, at least from an English-learning perspective. You might submit these to the members of your university creative writing seminar for critique.

It's ok if you don't want to correct them. I'm just trying to create these flowery sentences in order to have a bunch of difficult words better cemented in my brain.

Dormouse559 wrote:You might submit these to the members of your university creative writing seminar for critique.

Aww

Synalepha wrote:The main thing is you can't have "mythology that [something]"

It was actually the parody that had such character. Maybe I simply missed a "had" or "got".

Osias wrote:

Synalepha wrote:The main thing is you can't have "mythology that [something]"

I'm pretty sure I never wrote that.

Synalepha wrote:The nave of the temple was unfathomably long, the storiated clerestories were as tall as the eye could see.

"Why does it still take so long until Santa Claus finally comes?" asked the little child and pouted before she opened the 18 door of the advent calendar.

tiuwiu wrote:"Why does it still take so long until Santa Claus finally comes?" asked the little child and pouted before she opened the 18 door of the advent calendar.

You could say it that way, but "door 18", "door number 18", or "the 18th door" would all be more idiomatic.

Synalepha wrote:

Osias wrote:

Synalepha wrote:The main thing is you can't have "mythology that [something]"

I'm pretty sure I never wrote that.

I'm sorry. I'll try no to quote people on the phone again.

tiuwiu wrote:"Why does it still take so long until Santa Claus finally comes?" asked the little child and pouted before she opened the 18 door of the advent calendar.

Be careful, Tony, if you're not good enough, Santa Claus will give your Harry Potter chess set to another child, somewhere in Russia or in Ukraine.

It amazes me that people we used to think as smart today defend Trump and say he's playing 4 dimensional chess.

Three-dimensional is so obsolete right now - you should really get back on track and live in the four-dimensional version of life - you'll only feel more powerful.

Workers of world, unite! You have nothing to lose but becoming obsolete.

United Colors of Benetton... has anyone ever heard such a ridiculous slogan?

No, but most marketing slogans are ridiculous only a few are very catchy and creative.

Another bunch of flowers, really, Juno, can't you be a little more creative than the years before, what's wrong with that miniature clarinet we saw in that charity shop?

Synalepha wrote:It's ok if you don't want to correct them. I'm just trying to create these flowery sentences in order to have a bunch of difficult words better cemented in my brain.

Fair enough

Osias wrote:

The main thing is you can't have "mythology that [something]"

It was actually the parody that had such character that characteristic. Maybe I simply missed a "had" or "got".

In that case, I'd say "where", or if you're feeling formal "in which".

Osias wrote:It amazes me that people we used to think of as smart today defend Trump and say he's playing 4 dimensional chess.

Osias wrote:Workers of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but becoming obsolete.

The orange text sounds a bit clunky here; a full noun would work better than a gerund. If I'm understanding what you meant correctly, maybe "your own obsolescence".

tiuwiu wrote:No, but most marketing slogans are ridiculous, only a few are very catchy and creative.

Don't normally comment on punctuation since it's kind of squishy, but I'd say you should put at least a comma after "ridiculous". In formal settings, you'd need to use a semicolon or period.

france-eesti wrote:Another bunch of flowers, really, Juno, can't you be a little more creative than the years before (you've been in) previous years, what's wrong with that miniature clarinet we saw in that charity shop?

I would replace the comma before "what's" with a question mark.

There is little about a well-made clarinet that cannot be improved upon by a cheap oboe.*

* Is kidding and knows nothing about clarinets or oboes

Dormouse559 wrote:It was actually the parody that had such character that characteristic

I once read a comic book called Horus, Lord of the Light. The comic book was a parody of Marvel's Thor. The comic book had this guy, Horus. Horus was a character. Horus had to steer the solar system. The book was based on the Egyptian mythology. Loosely. Just like Marvel's Thor is "based" on Norse mythology.

Dormouse559 wrote:If I'm understanding what you meant correctly, maybe "your own obsolescence".

Yes.