Work through this short section and pick out a maximum of three things you think need to be changed. Type your corrections in a comment below, using CAPITALS for your changes, and explain why you think they need to be corrected. Allow at least one other person to post a comment before you look for more alterations.
Remember, there usually isn't only one way to say a thing. You may disagree with others, and that's fine. Just enter your own thoughts--a maximum of three at a time (so that others have a chance too).
THE UPSIDE-DOWN TREE
SCRIPTURE
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THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: . . . they drew Jason and certain brothers before the city judges, crying, These who have turned the world upside down have come here too.
Acts
17:6 (KJV)
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As
I drove along the road through the Limpopo Province of South Africa, I stopped the
car to gaze with my eyes at the mighty baobab tree standing alongside the road.
I knew that in the South African wet rainy season, this tree would give
bountiful shade to both animals and humans alike as well as it would be providing
food, water and shelter. Yet right then, in the dry air of the desert winter,
it had lost all its foliage.
- gaze with my eyes: I believe this is a form of tautology. It should be shortened to the word "gaze" only. One can only gaze with the eyes.
ReplyDelete- baobab needs to be capitalised.
- wet rainy season: remove the word "wet" as "rainy season" already suggests a lot of water. To use both would be superfluous.
David Ferreira
David
Delete- You're right. You can only gaze with your eyes, so that is redundancy.
- baobab is not capitalised. It isn't a proper noun.
- wet and rainy are again redundancy. You can't have a dry rainy season. (Well, I guess here in S.Africa that's a debatable point. But sill. It's sufficient to say rainy season.
- 'both animals and humans alike' - remove either 'both' or 'alike' (more tautology)
ReplyDelete- 'as well as it would be providing food...' - rephrase; suggest 'and would also provide food...'. Removes a rather complicated word structure, and 'provide' matches the earlier 'give'.
- provide shade in the rainy season? For a Kaapenaar like me that's surprising because our rainy season is in sun-starved winter. Perhaps replace 'wet rainy season' with 'hot rainy season'?
By the way, I'm not convinced that 'baobab' should take a capital.
Fi
ReplyDelete- Quite correct. Both or alike would do the trick. You don't need both. Tautology (or redundancy).
- Good suggestion re "providing food". The final version read, "as well as providing food, water and shelter.
- You're right re the rainy season. As David brought out, either wet or rainy is redundant. However, why would you need shade in the rain? The issue is that the rainy season is HOT. The actual original doesn't actually mention that, as it leaves it up to the reader's imagination.
Fi and David, thank you for your contributions. The published version read as follows:
ReplyDelete"As I drove through the Limpopo Province of South Africa, I stopped the car to gaze at the mighty baobab tree alongside the road. I knew that in the rainy season, this tree would give bountiful shade to animals and humans alike as well as providing food, water and shelter. Yet right then, in the dry desert winter, it had lost all its foliage."